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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On Shallower Tides...

PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: ON STRANGER TIDES (Dir. Rob Marshall, 2011)

Never believe the hype.

The word was that this was supposed to be the movie that got the franchise back on track. Even Johnny Depp was on record about how bloated and convoluted the last couple of PIRATES movies were, so the fourth film was set to right those wrongs.

Not so much. This installment is just as messy and murky as the last 2.

In fact, looking back - I felt exactly the same way I did after seeing the 3rd one (AT WORLD'S END). In my review of that I wrote:

"All the lame jokes, un-affecting fight scenes, and pointless attempts at romaticizing map-mythology with supposed sacred artifacts holding eternal power just left me bombastically bored.

I did however like the Keith Richards cameo (as Jack Sparrow's father no less). I heard there was a bonus scene like the other PIRATES had after the credits but at the 2 hour 45 mark I was dying to get the hell out of the theater - bet you will be too."

Except for the remark about the running time (at just over 2 hours this is shorter) I have the same reaction. This time I did stay to see the bonus scene though.

A lot of the cast from the series doesn't return - there's no Keira Knightly, Orlando Bloom, or Bill Nighy so the film offers a lot of Depp sparring off with Geoffrey Rush and Ian McShane as Blackbeard, a real missed oportunity as a character.

ON STRANGER TIDES is a noisy film full of groaners (Keith Richards has the funniest line, but I won't spoil it here), poorly plotted set-pieces, and Johnny Depp just swishing through the motions. It also doesn't take any pleasurable advantage of having zombies in it!

The last half takes the plot mechanics of INDIANA JONES AND THE LAST CRUSADE substituting the Holy Grail with the Fountain of Youth and re-writes them over and over again to no great effect.

Penélope Cruz and Depp have some mad chemistry but when she's reduced to a screaming b**** and Depp is just an ambitious cad they join the entire cast of people it's impossible to care about.

The 3D did nothing for me either.

I have to say though the audience around me seemed to love it all (there was even applause at the end), and my wife enjoyed it saying that she loved "the costumes, the detail on the sets and the ships," "how dark it was" and that "Johnny Depp appeals to all ages."

Judging from that this movie looks pretty critic-proof. It's an event movie that people will feel obligated to see so I'm sure it'll be a big hit. To me though it was another failed fourth and a big waste of time.

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The Summer Of The So-So Sequel

"Gentlemen, I wash my hands of this weirdness." - Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN : AT WORLD'S END Last week all them there critic folk dumped on SHREK THE THIRD, the week before that they dumped on PIRATES 3, before that they dumped all over SPIDERMAN 3 so I can't wait for them to dump on OCEAN'S 13! Then stand back for what RUSH HOUR 3 has got coming! Okay so sure these are products of franchise blockbuster seasonal thing, sure - but does movie medriocrity have to be so slickly blatant? I guess so - here goes : PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN : AT WORLD'S END (Gore Verbinski, 2007) Man I was dreading this. I was so indifferent to PIRATES 2 (informal short title) I didn't post a review so this time out upon hearing it was just under 3 hours and word that it was another convoluted exercise in excess I was looking forward to it about as much as I was to a dental appointment (which incidently I had earlier the same day). Not to say the flick is a total waste - there is a fine cast of good actors (Depp, Bill Nighy, Stellen Skarsguard, Mackenzie Cook, etc.) who wade their way through the muck and provide some solid moments but woo-wee! All the lame jokes, un-affecting fight scenes, and pointless attempts at romaticizing map-mythology with supposed sacred artifacts holding eternal power just left me bombastically bored. I did however like the Keith Richards cameo (as Jack Sparrow's father no less). I heard there was a bonus scene like the other PIRATES had after the credits but at the 2 hour 45 mark I was dying to get the hell out of the theater - bet you will be too. So that's the #1 movie in the country - now for the #6 movie (yep, how's that for a seque?) : WAITRESS (Dir. Adrienne Shelly, 2007) Keri Russell is Jenna, a small town waitress with an abusive asshole husband (Jeremy Sisto) who may as well be always clad in a wife-beater sleveless t-shirt. She escapes her miserable existence by dreaming of new pie recipes but that may be harder to do since she finds out she's pregnant. Her fellow waitresses at the pie diner (Cheryl Hines and the director herself Adrienne Shelly) provide some solace - Hines with her wise-cracks - "good luck on your 5 minute date, don't forget to wear a 5 minute condom!" and Shelly with her affable hang-dog quirkiness. None of this matters as much as Jenna's new infatuation with her doctor (Nathan Fillion) who may just be who she's looking for. Meanwhile Andy Griffith puts in a rare film performance as the cranky old diner owner who of course spews weary wisdom before gobbling down a piece of the plentiful pie. Funny without being cloying WAITRESS may have an ending that's too pat but it achieves its "feel-good movie" goal and while I almost expected an announcer for the Lifetime channel to tell me what's coming up next over the end credits I still smiled at the earnest effort. Now as usual some new release DVD reviews. Dig in kids! : FAY GRIM (Dir. Hal Hartley, 2006) Hartley's HENRY FOOL (1997) was one of the best independent movies of the 90's. To make a follow-up (don't want to call it a sequel) now comes off as one of the oddest decisions in recent film history. What's odder is the film itself - a twisted, contrived, and frustrating series of espionage capers. That's right Hartley took the unique absorbing picture he painted in FOOL and made it into a rote spy thriller. Parker Posey returns as the title character and again proves she can carry a movie - it's just unfortunate it's this meandering mumbo-jumbo. It is nice to see Posey get back to her indie roots after such mainstream turns as YOU'VE GOT MAIL and SUPERMAN RETURNS - I just wish Hartley's heart were more into it. After being told of Fool's (Thomas Jay Ryan - who only appears briefly) death Fay makes a deal with an Agent Fulbright (Jeff Goldblum - who looks very tired) to get her brother Simon Grim (James Urbaniak) out of jail while she goes to Paris to retrieve the missing possibly world-threating confession journals of Fool's. That's all I'm going to write about the damn numbing plot. Action scenes are ham-fisted and mostly made up of freeze frame still shots and purposely not showing us the actual moments of impact. The result is we are not convinced and don't care about what's going on. I know I didn't. I believe I need to re-watch HENRY FOOL to get the sour taste out of my mouth from this dim grim (sorry - couldn't help it) mess. THIEVES LIKE US (Robert Altman, 1974) Having been an Altman fan for most of my life I was very curious about this movie. It was never available on VHS and I never came across it on TV so it was just a title in a filmography in some random film guide I would pick up from time to time. It's still glossed over in Altman's Wikipedia entry the last time I checked. Curious because it comes from Altman's most acclaimed and glorious period (the 70's, stupid) - I mean its right smack between CALIFORNIA SPLIT and THE LONG GOODBYE so what was the hold-up? Even more curious is that it's really good and should be more than just noted - it's a movie to savor. Just released by Paramount on DVD mere months after Altman's death we can finally see Keith Carradine, John Schuck, and Bert Remsen play bank-robbing ex-felons in Mississippi in the 30's. Hitting over 30 banks they build up quite a reputation as evidenced in the radio reports and newspaper headlines they grab. Along the way Carradine falls for Altman regular Shelley Duvall, Remsen marries a frumpy beautician, and Schuck gets drunker and drunker. The real meat on the plate here is the mundune every day life between the stick-ups where Coke bottles are clutched, bad jokes are told, and the notion of settling down is as daunting as the fear of being caught by the law. The only special feature on the DVD is a commentary recorded by Altman reportedly in the late 90's but it's the only extra it needs to have. In my adventures in Altman appraisal since the great man's death I've put together this handy list - THE ROBERT ALTMAN REPORATORY COMPANY (or stock company as Ebert calls it) ROLE CALL : For the most part I've stuck to his movies - the TANNER series and it's follow-up being the only exceptions. Also this is far from complete - the noting of everyone who puts in a brief cameo or just walks by in THE PLAYER ('92) who is in another Altman movie would take all day - sorry Andie MacDowell and Peter Gallagher! I don't ignore THE PLAYER (how can I?) but I tried to get the most relevant down. Stand up when your name is called thespians! Rene Auberjonois (pictured left) – MASH ('70), BREWSTER McCLOUD ('70), McCABE & MRS. MILLER ('71), IMAGES ('72), THE PLAYER (as himself) : Sure he may be better known from TV gigs like Benson and STAR TREK : DEEP SPACE NINE but it's his work during Altman's great early '70's run especially as Father Mulcahy in MASH that put him on the movie map. Ned Beatty – NASHVILLE ('75), COOKIE'S FORTUNE ('99) Karen Black - NASHVILLE, COME BACK TO THE FIVE AND DIME JIMMY DEAN JIMMY DEAN ('82) Keith Carradine – McCABE & MRS. MILLER, THIEVES LIKE US, NASHVILLE Geraldine Chaplin - NASHVILLE, BUFFALO BILL AND THE INDIANS, A WEDDING ('78) Bud Cort (pictured on the right) - BREWSTER McCLOUD, MASH- Only 2 movies but what a 2 movies to make a mark in! Forget about Harold for a bit and give Cort his due! BREWSTER McCLOUD is sadly still unavailable on DVD but there is a rumored release set for later this year that I pray is not just a rumor. Sandy Dennis – THAT COLD DAY IN THE PARK ('69),COME BACK TO THE FIVE AND DIME JIMMY DEAN JIMMY DEAN Paul Dooley – A WEDDING, A PERFECT COUPLE ('79), HealtH ('80), POPEYE ('80), O.C. AND STIGGS ('85) Robert Duvall – COUNTDOWN ('68) MASH, THE GINGERBREAD MAN ('98) Shelley Duvall – BREWSTER McCLOUD, McCABE & MRS. MILLER, THIEVES LIKE US, NASHVILLE, BUFFALO BILL AND THE INDIANS, 3 WOMEN, POPEYE Henry Gibson – THE LONG GOODBYE ('73), NASHVILLE, A PERFECT COUPLE, HealtH Elliot Gould - MASH, THE LONG GOODBYE, NASHVILLE (as himself), THE PLAYER (as himself) Sally Kellerman (above) - BREWSTER McCLOUD, MASH, THE PLAYER, PRET-A-PORTER ('94) Lyle Lovett - THE PLAYER, SHORT CUTS ('93), PRET-A-PORTER, COOKIE'S FORTUNE (also had songs in DR. T & THE WOMEN-2000) : Lovett was creepily effective as the plain-clothed cop on Robbin's back in THE PLAYER but you've really got to give it up for his crazed cake chef in SHORT CUTS. Julianne Moore - SHORT CUTS, COOKIE'S FORTUNE Michael Murphy - COUNTDOWN, THAT COLD DAY IN THE PARK, BREWSTER McCLOUD, MASH, McCABE & MRS. MILLER, KANSAS CITY ('96), (also the TV projects TANNER '88 and TANNER ON TANNER) : Definitely one of Altman's most reliable and solid players. Murphy has a handle on a particular late 20th century American male persona - polished and poised on the outside but in the inside a troubled tortured soul. Well used in the undeservably underrated Tanner series. Paul Newman - BUFFALO BILL AND THE INDIANS, QUINTET Bert Remsen – THIEVES LIKE US, BUFFALO BILL AND THE INDIANS, A WEDDING, THE PLAYER Tim Robbins - THE PLAYER, SHORT CUTS, PRET A PORTER John Schuck (pictured on the right) - BREWSTER McCLOUD, MASH, McCABE & MRS. MILLER, THIEVES LIKE US : Speaking of under-rated, Schuck is a wonderful unsung character actor who added much to Altman's golden age. However you may recognize him more if he had Klingon makeup on. Tom Skerrit – MASH, THIEVES LIKE US Lily Tomlin (pictured left) – NASHVILLE, THE PLAYER (as herself) , SHORT CUTS, A PRAIRIE HOME COMPANION ('06) : One of the biggest comedy stars of the 70's, Tomlin displayed her best acting under Altman's tuteledge. For her to be happily on-hand for his last hurrah was a beautiful thing indeed. Nina Van Pallandt - THE LONG GOODBYE, A WEDDING, QUINTET, O.C. AND STIGGS More later...