TV/Streaming

Racy Redline: Cartoon crotch shots & Elvis fantasies

Jana Monji

“Redline” is available on demand via Vudu.com and Amazon Instant Video. It is also on DVD/Blu-ray.

There are nights when I love nothing better than dressing up in a T-shirt, my saddle shoes and a poodle skirt like a high school teen from “American Graffiti” and get ready for some East Coast swing. If I could ride in a cherry retro car, that would just make my night perfect. You’d think that the anime “Redline,” with its young Elvis-like rebel protagonist who flaunts his need for speed, would suit me just fine. My husband likes women in short skirts like the racetrack babes and bimbos of “Redline,” so this anime should have offered something for both of us. Yet we found this futuristic racing anime a hyperactive snore. I’m not saying that 44-year-old director Takeshi Koike is musty, but the characters are dead on arrival and the techno soundtrack during the action sequences made us want to flee their funeral.

All Together: Communal living, senior style

Odie Henderson

“All Together,” or “Et si on vivait tous ensemble?” (97 minutes) is available via VOD on various cable systems, and on iTunes, Amazon Instant and Vudu.

The cinema of 2012 is brought to you by Viagra, or so it seems. The year has been chock full of movies about horny old people. Sure, the characters still complain, have aches and pains, and deal with moments both senior and regrettable. But Nana’s also out to prove she’s still got the ill na na, and Gramps is in the mood like Glenn Miller on an endless loop. Films like Dustin Hoffman’s “Quartet,” with its randy Billy Connolly, and the main characters of Stephane Robelin’s “All Together” dispel the myth that once you go gray, the sex goes away. These folks are reclaiming “bitch and moan” from its grumpy origins, and turning the phrase into a cause-and-effect relationship.

Black history written with lightning

Odie Henderson

“The Black Power Mixtape: 1967-1975” plays on PBS’s “Independent Lens” Thursday, February 9, 2012. Check local listings. It is also available on DVD, Netflix Instant and Amazon Instant.

After viewing “The Black Power Mixtape: 1967-1975,” I stumbled out of the theater and into a blinding, mid-afternoon New York City sun, every nerve in my body ablaze. All my neurons seemed to be firing at once, and my brain was so full of thought I sought some way to collect myself. I started to walk, focusing more on reconciling my thoughts than a navigational direction. With no destination in mind, I walked for what seemed an eternity, trying to put my emotional responses together. I was jolted from my mental process by an old woman standing next to me on a Manhattan street corner. I must have looked shell-shocked, because she touched my arm as we waited for a Lower East Side traffic light to change. “Honey, are you alright?” she asked, genuine concern on her face.

Fully back in reality, I said “I’m fine, ma’am. Thank you for asking.”

My reaction requires an explanation. Swedish journalist and filmmaker Göran Hugo Olsson’s documentary took me back to the days when I came to a mature understanding of the implications of being Black, male, and broke. My adolescence was full of reading the speeches and works of Black leaders besides Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. I chose to do this after my uncle took me to a Black-owned bookstore and suggested several books I should read. He avoided MLK not out of some form of militant stance, but because footage and information about King were everywhere. He was the star of every Black History Month on TV, and those who rejected the message of non-violence were either marginalized, demonized or ignored. I devoured works by people whose messages were downright terrifying to mainstream America: Malcolm X, Stokely Carmichael, Eldridge Cleaver, and Huey P. Newton.

Booker’s Place: A Mississippi reckoning

Odie Henderson

“Booker’s Place: A Mississippi Story (92 minutes) is available on-demand at iTunes and Amazon starting April 26th. It will be theatrically released in Los Angeles, CA on April 25, 2012. and New York on April 27, 2012.

“Booker’s Place: A Mississippi Story” asks a question about documentaries to which I admit I’ve not given much consideration: Can a documentary negatively affect the lives of their participants? For Booker Wright, an interviewee in Frank DeFelitta’s 1966 NBC documentary, “Mississippi: A Self-Portrait,” his appearance cost him a severe beating, the bombing of his business, and potentially his death 7 years later. Wright’s “crime” was to speak too bluntly about life as a Black man in Greenwood, Mississippi. “Booker’s Place” investigates the ramifications of DeFelitta using footage he knew was incendiary, yet invaluable to his role as one who documents the truth. Did DeFelitta also commit a “crime” in allowing the footage to be broadcast, assisting in the eventual fate of Booker Wright? Wright’s granddaughter, Yvette Johnson and Frank’s son, Raymond DeFelitta, answer this and more in their must-see documentary.

 

The elder DeFelitta’s documentary aired on NBC at the height of the civil rights movement. Hidden for decades in a vault, “Mississippi: A Self-Portrait” resurfaced as Frank DeFelitta and his son were cataloguing the numerous documentaries Frank made for NBC in the ’60’s. At the same time, Booker Wright’s granddaughter, who had never met her grandfather, was writing a blog about her discoveries researching him. Although Johnson had heard of his NBC appearance, her searches for the footage yielded nothing but dead-ends. After the younger DeFelitta heard of Johnson’s blog, he contacted her. Their meeting sent them on a journey for answers to their central questions. DeFelitta wanted to know how much, if any, effect his father’s documentary had on Booker Wright; Johnson wanted to know more about her grandfather, and whether his comments were intentional or, in her words, the work of “an accidental activist.”

Johnny Carson: The man behind the curtain

Jeff Shannon

“Johnny Carson: The King of Late Night” (120 minutes) premieres on PBS’ “American Masters” at 9:00pm Monday, May 14th (check local listings). The film will also be released on DVD and Blu-ray on July 17th.

As I reflect on my life, I grow increasingly grateful for having witnessed the greatest half-century in the history of the United States. Consider just a few of the crucial events that have shaped us during the past 50 years: The civil rights movements for African-Americans, women and the disabled; the assassinations of JFK, MLK and RFK; the war in Vietnam and its domestic fallout; landing on the moon and exploring the outer reaches of the universe; the global trauma of AIDS and seemingly perpetual threats of war and terrorism; and, perhaps most important, the emergence and meteoric rise of the digital age, exemplified by the Internet and social media with the power to literally change history through an exponential expansion of human connectedness.

If you’ve witnessed these decades through the multicolored lenses of popular culture, the rewards have been astonishing. Consider the careers we’ve seen in that time: Dylan, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Neil Young, Springsteen, Madonna, The Clash, U2, Nirvana… Don Rickles, Richard Pryor, George Carlin, Eddie Murphy, Tina Fey… Clint Eastwood, Martin Scorsese, Dustin Hoffman, Meryl Streep, Steven Spielberg, Werner Herzog… We could all make our own long lists and we’d all arrive at the same conclusion: The past half-century has been nothing short of phenomenal.

And one way or another, it all comes down to “The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson.”

Paul Williams Still Alive; movie not so much

Donald Liebenson

“Paul Williams Still Alive” (87 minutes) will be available on VOD October 16th via (Comcast, Time Warner, Cox, Bright House, among other cable providers), iTunes, VUDU, YouTube, Amazon, Sony (Playstation), Microsoft (Zune, Xbox), Blockbuster, AT&T, DirecTV, DISH.

by Donald Liebenson

In begrudgingly recommending “Paul Williams Still Alive” to his legion of fans, I am reminded of a Rolling Stone magazine review of Janis Joplin’s first solo album, “I Got Dem Ol’ Kozmic Blues Again Mama!” Janis never sounded better, the reviewer said, but to enjoy her, you had to be able to tune out her backup band. A similar caveat is necessary here. Enjoyment of “Still Alive” will depend on your tolerance of writer-director Stephen Kessler, who takes Williams’ joke at one point that the documentary could become the “Paulie and Steve Show” as a carte blanche invitation to intrude on the proceedings.

Edwin Drood: Cold Case Reopened

Jeff Shannon

“The Mystery of Edwin Drood” (120 minutes) premieres on PBS “Masterpiece Classic” at 9 p.m. Sunday, April 15th (check local listings). The film can also be watched online for a limited time beginning April 16th. It is also available on DVD.

When Charles Dickens died on June 9th, 1870, his final novel, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, was barely half-finished. Almost immediately, completing the novel became a kind of literary sport, as numerous authors took it upon themselves to finish Drood in a manner fitting with Dickens’s own style and substance. Speculative attempts to complete the story continue to this day, and now we have a new PBS “Masterpiece Classic” version to discuss, debate and appreciate. Directed by Diarmuid Lawrence and adapted by British playwright and veteran TV writer Gwyneth Hughes (who previously penned the “Masterpiece Classic” drama Mrs. Austen Regrets), this two-hour version of “The Mystery of Edwin Drood” dares to stretch credibility almost but not quite to the breaking point.

It’s a delicate game being played here, so I’ll avoid spoilers altogether. Suffice it to say that Hughes’ solution to the mystery of Edwin Drood is in keeping with Dickens’ intentions. We know from Dickens’ own correspondence that it was Edwin’s uncle, John Jasper, who would ultimately be held accountable for the alleged murder of his nephew. Not content to limit themselves to just this one historically well-established plot twist, Hughes and Lawrence have added a familial dimension to the story that qualifies, in this context, as a surprising (though not altogether shocking) revelation. Whether Dickens would’ve approved is yet another topic worthy of debate.

An unfashionable belief in the Great Man

Steven Boone

“Bill T. Jones: A Good Man,” premieres nationally Friday, November 11 at 9 p.m. (ET/PT) on PBS. Check local listings.

by Steven Boone

Bill T. Jones looks like an epic hero of dance. His cheekbones are as intricately chiseled as his sable Jack Johnson physique. When working as a choreographer-director, he projects artistic heroism, naturally striking poses of sage leadership straight out of Classics Illustrated. Having created a show celebrating Africa’s great musical activist, Fela Kuti (“FELA!”), to worldwide acclaim and Tony awards, he wasn’t yet done with the subject of heroes when it struck him to complete a long-gestating piece about Abraham Lincoln titled “Fondly Do We Hope/Fervently Do We Pray.”

“Bill T. Jones: A Good Man” is a documentary about Jones’s attempt to understand his lifelong hero-worship of The Great Emancipator, using an entire dance company as his investigative tool. Many of the dancers grew up idolizing Jones the same way he has bowed to Lincoln since childhood — an ingenious meta-reverberation of theme that’s clearly intentional. Jones wants to know if Lincoln was, indeed, the “good man” official history portrays. Leadership in times of war and social upheaval entails traversing a minefield of cynical agendas. Jones wants to know if idealism can truly flower in such a toxic climate.

A day after bitching at many of his collaborators well into rehearsals, Jones gathers the company to apologize, but also to confess: He needs their help. Wearing dancer’s tights and no shirt rather than his usual sweats and t-shirt, he appears as vulnerable as his performers. He’s one of them for a moment, and he admits to having been puzzled about where he was steering this artistic ship. Now he realizes that the show isn’t about Lincoln but about Bill T. Jones and his unfashionable beliefs.

Love and death (not necessarily in that order)

Kevin B. Lee

Manoel de Oliveira’s “The Strange Case of Angelica” is available on demand via Netflix Instant and for download on iTunes. It is also on DVD and Blu-ray and is coming soon to Vudu.

Few of us can expect to live 100 years, much less have that age represent the prime of our career. But Portuguese director Manoel de Oliveira, who last month celebrated his 103rd birthday, has averaged one new film a year since 1985 (Ron Howard’s “Cocoon,” in which Florida retirees meet space aliens who hold the secret to youth, was released the same year — coincidence?). Two-thirds of Oliveira’s 30 features were made in his eighties and nineties; Clint Eastwood, who last year turned 81, has his work cut out for him.

Oliveira’s prodigious output, which would put most directors to shame regardless of their age, may be his way of making up for lost time. While he can trace his career all the way to the silent era, he didn’t make his first feature “Aniki Bobo” until he was 34; his second feature “Rite of Spring” came 21 years later. His stalled output can partly be attributed to his decades-long resistance to Portugal’s oppressive right-wing Estado Novo regime, during which Oliveira spent time in jail. Ironically, when leftists finally took over in the 1970s, they seized Oliveira’s family business that had sustained him throughout his artistic struggles. Fortunately by that point he had achieved international acclaim, heralded by film critic J. Hoberman as “one of the 70s leading modernists” just as he entered his seventies.

The Loving Story: A romantic interracial landmark

Steven Boone

“The Loving Story” premieres on Valentine’s Day, February 14, at 9 p.m. on HBO (check local listings), and is available via HBO On Demand and HBO Go thereafter.

“The Loving Story” is as modest and taciturn as its subject, an interracial couple who, in 1958 rural Central Point, Virginia, just wanted to be left alone. For the most part, they were, and that was the problem as much as it was their fervent wish. When the local sheriff busted into their bedroom at 4 am and hauled them off to jail for violating the Racial Integrity Act, there was no national audience, in contrast to the fire hosings, bombings and other acts of racist terror that couldn’t help but make the evening news at the time. The whole world was not watching. It’s hard to fathom why after seeing the luminous 16mm footage uncovered in “The Loving Story.” Documenting many pivotal moments in the case, it adds a dash of something rarely seen in the grand narrative of the American Civil Rights struggle: romance.

In the footage and iconic photographs, the Lovings appear to be deeply in love. Richard is a silent, barrel-chested Ed Harris lookalike; Mildred is shy and beautiful, the essence of poised intelligence. How could a story this simple and universal, with two photogenic romantic leads captured in a Life magazine feature, get lost in the Civil Rights shuffle?

The Loving case eventually went all the way to the Supreme Court, and all along the way, the couple insisted upon discretion and privacy. Only a small documentary crew — filmmaker Hope Ryden and cinematographer Abbot Mills — gained access to their home, but they made the most of it. The photography is as discreet but watchful as Mildred herself. When she, well, lovingly buckles her little daughter’s suede shoe as they prepare for an outing, the camera isolates the mother’s slender brown arm steadying her child’s pale leg. In the film’s context, as assembled by producer-director Nancy Buirski, moments like this one simply cry out, “Why on earth would a decent person want to disrupt this beautiful life?”

On “The Rack” with Paul Newman and Stewart Stern

Jeff Shannon

• “The Rack” (1956)

• “Until They Sail” (1957)

• “The Prize” (1963)

• “Tales of Tomorrow: Ice From Space” (1953)”The Rack,” “Until They Sail” and “The Prize” are now available on made-to-order DVD from the Warner Archive Collection for $19.95 each. “Tales of Tomorrow” can be viewed on Hulu Plus and Amazon Instant Video.

by Jeff Shannon

You would think that every film Paul Newman ever appeared in would be readily available on home video, right? Guess again. One of the best films from Newman’s early career has managed to slip through the cracks of home-video distribution for decades, and unless you’re old enough to have seen it in theaters or on TV over the years, it’s possible you’ve never even heard of it.

So when I heard that “The Rack” (1956) was available on home video for the very first time, I couldn’t wait to break the news to Stewart Stern.

For anyone who’s wondering “Stewart who?” there’s a convenient shortcut you can use when discussing the impressive life and career of Stewart Stern. All you have to say is, “He wrote ‘Rebel Without a Cause.'”

Uh-huh, that one. With a credit like that, any screenwriter could legitimately claim a slice of movie immortality, like James Dean did as the now-iconic star of Nicholas Ray’s 1955 teen-angst classic.

But to say that Stern only wrote “Rebel” is a bit like saying Frank Lloyd Wright designed a house. In the course of his distinguished, decades-spanning career, Stern wrote rich, psychologically perceptive scripts that were magnets for great actors and great acting: His script for “The Ugly American” (1963) gave Brando plenty to chew on; his Oscar-nominated script for “Rachel, Rachel” (1968) gave Joanne Woodward what is arguably the best role of her career (under the direction of her husband, Paul Newman; they also earned Oscar nods); and Stern’s Emmy and Peabody-winning teleplay for “Sybil” (1976) transformed cute TV actress Sally Field into an Emmy winner with a pair of Oscars in her future. A few years later, Stern left Hollywood, weary of the rat race and struggling with writer’s block, the delayed effect of post-traumatic stress from service in World War II. In the mid-’80s, Stern relocated to Seattle and never looked back.

And while Stern may have been a nephew of Paramount Pictures founder Adolph Zukor, with additional family ties to MGM moguls Arthur Loew Sr. and Jr., his closest Hollywood connection was more personal and more warmly indicative of the man’s soul and spirit: For 55 years, Stewart Stern was one of Paul Newman’s very best friends.

The Girl: Putty in Hitch’s hands

Jeff Shannon

“The Girl” premieres on HBO at 9:00pm (8:00pm Central) on Saturday, Oct. 20. It will also be available on HBO GO.

Inventing David Geffen: The Art of Self-Creation

Jeff Shannon

“American Masters: Inventing David Geffen” premieres Tuesday, Nov. 20th at 8:00pm on PBS. (Check local listings.) It can also be viewed, where available, via PBS On Demand.

by Jeff Shannon

It was my good fortune to be working at Microsoft when the big announcement was made in March of 1995: Microsoft was entering into a joint venture with DreamWorks SKG, the new film studio and entertainment company founded the previous year by mega-moguls Steven Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen (the “SKG” in the company’s original moniker). At the time, Microsoft dominated the booming business of multimedia publishing, and the group I was working in, nicknamed “MMPUB,” was producing a dazzling variety of CD-ROM games and reference guides. As an independent contractor I was the assistant editor of Cinemania, a content-rich, interactive movie encyclopedia (later enhanced with a website presence) that was an elegant and in some ways superior precursor to the Internet Movie Database.

The Promised Land Will Be Wheelchair-Accessible

Jeff Shannon

“Lives Worth Living” premieres on the PBS series “Independent Lens” on October 27th at 10:00 p.m. (ET/PT). For more information, visit the film’s PBS website and filmmaker Eric Neudel’s website.

by Jeff Shannon

To be disabled in America, in 2011, is to occupy the midpoint of a metaphorical highway, some stretches smooth and evenly paved, others rocky and difficult to navigate. When you look back at the road behind, you feel proud and satisfied that people with disabilities (PWD) have made significant progress since the days when we had no voice, no place in society, no civil rights whatsoever. Looking ahead, you see fewer physical obstacles but other remaining barriers, in terms of backward attitudes and ongoing exclusion, that society is still stubbornly reluctant to remove.

Like those of us with disabilities, Eric Neudel’s documentary “Lives Worth Living” is situated at that halfway point on the rocky road of progress. In just 54 inspiring and informative minutes, Neudel’s exceptional film (airing Oct. 27th at 10pm on the PBS series “Independent Lens”) provides a concise primer on the history of the disability rights movement in America. The film culminates with the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), which was signed into law by President George H.W. Bush on July 26th, 1990.

And yet, it’s only half the story. In a perfect world, PBS would immediately finance a sequel so Neudel (who has devoted his career to documenting political and civil rights struggles) could chronicle the first 20 years of the ADA. That history is still unfolding, and the struggle to enforce and fully implement the ADA is just as compelling as the struggle for disability rights throughout the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s.

(I’ll go a step further and say that the subject is worthy of a multi-part Ken Burns approach, echoing the sentiment of veteran disability-rights advocate Lex Frieden, who observes in “Lives Worth Living” that “If you have a good story to tell, it’s not hard to get people to watch or listen to it.” And the tale of pre- and post-ADA disability in America is a very good story indeed, as packed with human drama as any other fight for equality in all of American history.)

Corman’s World: Monsters, mayhem & breast nudity!

Donald Liebenson

“Corman’s World: Exploits of a Hollywood Rebel” is available March 27 on online outlets via iTunes, Vudu, CinemaNow and Amazon. Also on DVD and Blu-ray.

For B-movie buffs, exploitation film aficionados, and midnight movie cultists, the grand finale of “Corman’s World: Exploits of a Hollywood Rebel,” will be every bit as exhilarating as that montage of forbidden kisses at the end of “Cinema Paradiso.” Taking its cue from the liberating, rebellious high point of the Roger Corman-produced “Rock and Roll High School,” in which P. J. Soles and the Ramones rock the hallways of Vince Lombardi High, it offers up dizzying bursts of quintessential Corman: cheesy monsters, fiery car explosions, Vincent Price, blaxploitation kickass, marauding piranhas and Mary Woronov with a gun.

Alex Stapleton’s “Corman’s World” celebrates the singular cinematic legacy of the “King of the Bs,” who has improbably and regretfully fallen into obscurity. Observes director Penelope Spheeris (“The Boys Next Door,” “The Decline of Western Civilization Part II: The Metal Years,” “Wayne’s World”): “If you ask a 20-25-year-old film buff, they won’t know who he is.”

This despite a career that spans almost 60 years and more than 400 films that Corman either directed or produced. But while his own name may be unfamiliar, many of the once-fledgling actors and filmmakers whom he nurtured/exploited are not: Martin Scorsese (“Boxcar Bertha”), Ron Howard (“Grand Theft Auto”), Peter Bogdanovich (“Targets”), Jonathan Demme (“Caged Heat”), Joe Dante (“Piranha”), Robert DeNiro (“Bloody Mama”), Pam Grier (“The Big Doll House”), screenwriter John Sayles (“The Lady in Red”) — all these and many more appear in “Corman’s World” in new and archival interviews.

Norman Mailer: His life in public

Donald Liebenson

“Norman Mailer: The American” is available on Amazon Instant video. It is also available on DVD. Criterion has announced a two-disc Eclipse Series DVD set of Norman Mailer-directed features for release August 28, 2012: “Maidstone” (1970), “Wild 90” (1967) and “Beyond the Law” (1968).

Watching “Norman Mailer: The American,” I was struck by the similarities between Mailer and Charles Foster Kane. And it’s not just that director Joseph Mantegna (not the actor) at one point employs the title card for “Citizen Kane’s” faux newsreel “News on the March” to setup some archival footage. Or the fact that “American” was originally the proposed title for Orson Welles’ masterpiece.

Both films grapple with taking the full measure of a man who had significant influences on his times (Kane is fictional, but he was legendarily based in part on newspaper publisher William Randolph Hearst). As Mailer’s life unfolds in all its glory, controversy and infamy, dialogue from “Kane” ran like a crawl through my brain. “Few private lives were more public… and he himself was always news.” And: “Here’s a man who was as loved and hated and talked about as any man in our time.” But finally: “It’s not enough to tell us what the man did, you’ve got to tell us who he was.”

The Captains: The Shat talks Trek

Jana Monji

“The Captains” is available on Netflix, EpixHD.com, Amazon Instant Video, Vudu and DVD. It will screen on HBO Canada March 21.

Stardate 65630.8 (1 March 2012)

What made “Star Trek” the most “durable and profitable franchise” in entertainment history? In his documentary, writer-director-producer William Shatner makes a convincing argument that it was “The Captains” — they set the tone and they brought the theatricality and Shakespearean linguistic grace to TV.

“The Captains,” appeared in October, 2011, in Canada, had one-night screenings here and there across North America, and helped launch EpixHD.com. That all seems in keeping with Shatner’s impressive role as a new-media barnstormer. No, he’s not making political speeches, but he’s on Google+ and Facebook, and he’s traveling around North America promoting and preserving what may be his most lasting legacy, his role as Captain James T. Kirk. He’s even returned to Broadway in a one-man show covering his career before, during and beyond “Star Trek.” (Yes, “returned.”)

In Hollywood, people joke about the William Shatner School of Acting. He’s corny. He’s melodramatic. And he has a sizable ego. But he’s really not a bad actor. We forget that before “Star Trek,” Shatner seemed destined to become a fine stage actor. He first made the trip to Broadway from his native Canada in 1956 with a small part in “Tamburlaine the Great” in 1956. The production had two Tony nominations. He scored the starring role in “The World of Suzie Wong,” which ran for two years. Both he and the female lead won Theatre World Awards for their work. In 1962, he was one of the main performers in “A Shot in the Dark,” for which Walter Matthau won a featured actor Tony. All that momentum got sidetracked when he went Hollywood.

Who forgives the Gonzo?

Odie Henderson

Opening theatrically in New York. Available now through Comcast On Demand, Amazon, iTunes, Vudu. See TribecaFilm.com for details.

by Odie Henderson

“Beware the Gonzo” begins with one of those flash-forwarded scenes where something from later in the film is presented to us as a means of foreshadowing. Being out of context, the scene has the tricky role of piquing the viewer’s interest while not being a spoiler. It rarely works, and “Beware the Gonzo”‘s opening scene is a big spoiler: a beaten up Eddie “Gonzo” Gilman (Ezra Miller) stares into a video camera and tells us that his actions have cost him his best friends, made him lose his girl, gotten him kicked out of school, and almost caused the divorce of his parents (played nicely by Campbell Scott and Amy Sedaris).

This is supposed to be an apology to all those he has wronged, but instead, it’s one of those politician mea culpas, a whiny “my bad if you were upset” speech that never forgets to be more about its subject than atoning for his wrongdoings. Out of context, it seemed pathetic, but I was willing to grant that I didn’t have the entire speech at my disposal. However, it hung over the movie, and as I met the interesting and trusting characters, dread crept in; I kept waiting for the moment when Gonzo would stop being the likeable character he is for much of the film and turns into this destructive monster.

This is not a bad thing, mind you, but the film’s dark turn treats some rather unsavory matters in eye-rollingly shallow fashion to produce a happy ending. It never makes its case for why we, or anybody in “Beware the Gonzo” should Forgive the Gonzo. If the film were honest, this tale of how power corrupts would have had a bittersweet, life-learning lesson of an ending: The hero learns from his mistakes and carries that lament with him as he moves on. Lacking that courage, director-screenwriter Brian Goluboff should have at least removed the most serious of “Beware the Gonzo”‘s sins from the screenplay. The ending would then be easier to swallow. More on that shortly.

Gonzo works for a prep school newspaper run by principal’s darling Gavin Reilly (Jesse McCartney). Reilly is a jock who not only edits the newspaper but comes from a long line of school attendees and patrons. Reilly’s family has won a prestigious history award for the school two years running, and he is in line to win it its third. Reilly is also a bully (and worse, as we’ll discover) who trashes all of Gonzo’s article ideas. He and his jocks beat up Gonzo’s friend, the wonderfully named Scott Marshall Schneeman (Edward Gelbinovich), giving him an gate-enhanced atomic wedgie. Scott’s predicament leads Gonzo to turn his “first day of school” article into an expose on the bullied kids. Reilly edits out all but two paragraphs of Gonzo’s article, forcing him to start his own underground newspaper. The first article is all about Scott and his run-ins with the jocks.

So U2 Wanna Be a Rock ‘n’ Roll Star

Odie Henderson

“Killing Bono” available On Demand (through various cable outlets — check your listings) October 5. In theaters November 4.

by Odie Henderson

“Every time a friend succeeds, I die a little.” — Gore Vidal

I was the only patron at my screening of “U2: Rattle and Hum” back in 1988. Sitting in the cavernous darkness of my old ‘hood theater, with its still-unmatched speakers and the ghosts of my childhood movies, I fell in love with the band U2. Beforehand, I had a casual familiarity with their music, and while I liked some of the songs, I wouldn’t have considered myself a fan. I went because the black and white cinematography looked gorgeous in the clips I’d seen on TV. I wasn’t disappointed. Phil Joanou’s documentary is achingly beautiful. That, along with Bono and the New Voices of Freedom gospel choir’s performance of “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For,” cemented my diehard fandom. Once, in a Dublin pub, armed with numerous imbibed pints of Guinness and a dare from the guitar-playing busker who’d been entertaining the crowd, I sang “All I Want Is You” to a crowd of swooning lasses standing in front of me. That evening ended well.

Neil McCormick, the protagonist of “Killing Bono” would hate that I started this piece fawning over the murder victim of the film’s title. After all, he feels trapped in Bono’s shadow and decides he has to kill him. “Killing Bono” opens in 1987, with a stalkerish Neil (Ben Barnes) driving his car to Bono’s latest Dublin appearance. Rambling to the camera that he was originally entitled to everything Bono has, Neil crashes his car before exiting with his gun drawn and pointed at his prey. “I always knew I’d be famous,” he tells us.

Cue the flashback machine! Suddenly, it’s 1976, and McCormick stands in a high school hallway reading a billboard notice. His classmate, Paul Hewson (Martin McCann), is holding auditions for his new band, The Hype. Despite being in Neil’s band, The Undertakers, Neil’s brother Ivan (Robert Sheehan) tries out for second guitar. Much to Neil’s chagrin, Hewson loves Ivan’s work and wants him for his band. Neil objects–Ivan’s really good and essential to Neil’s success–so he tells Paul no deal.

Shut Up Little Man: An Odie Misadventure

Odie Henderson

Opening theatrically in select cities and available On Demand through Comcast, Amazon, Hulu and other providers. For more information, visit TribecaFilm.com.

by Odie Henderson

The technological weapon of choice is refreshingly analog: Cassette tapes containing the vitriolic, violent rants of two men living together in an apartment in San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury district. The men, Raymond Hoffman and Peter Haskett, proclaim their disdain for one another in conversations loud enough to wake the dead. Haskett is an openly gay man, Hoffman a raging homophobe, and both are well beyond casual drinking.

The combination of opposites fueled by days of constant boozing provides enough hate to fuel the furnace that heats Hell, all of it recorded on those cassette tapes. The men become celebrities of sorts after their recordings go the pre-YouTube version of viral in the early 1990’s. Though Ray and Pete provide the content, the reward goes to the men who recorded them, Eddie Lee Sausage and Mitchell D. The documentary, “Shut Up Little Man: An Audio Misadventure” documents their return to the scene of their run-in with fame, a pink apartment complex they affectionately called Pepto-Bismol Palace.

Ray and Pete lived next door to Eddie and Mitchell from 1987 to 1989. After Eddie signs the lease, their landlord warns them that their neighbors can get “a little loud.” When the duo finds out how loud, Eddie confronts Ray. A drunken Ray threatens to kill him before returning his threats to Pete. Neither “Cops” nor “Judge Judy” were on the air in 1987, so the duo didn’t realize they could have their blitzed neighbors dragged out into the street on camera before suing the pantyhose off their trifling landlord. Being from a small town instead of a crime-ridden metropolis, Eddie and Mitchell also seem unaware that, if the walls are thin enough to hear the neighbors, bullets will have no problem getting through them. So, rather than call their landlord or the cops, Eddie and Mitchell decide to record Ray and Pete instead.

Mitchell tells us that Ray and Pete are aware they are being recorded, yet they continue to scream obscenity at each other. After collecting 10 or so hours of material, he and Eddie loan some of the cassettes to friends. The friends find the tapes hilarious, and pass them on to other friends who do the same. Soon, Pete and Ray are underground sensations, and Pete’s constant refrain of “Shut Up, Little Man!” becomes the catchphrase of the cassette crowd. Comic books based on the material are drawn by Daniel Clowes (“Ghost World”). Puppet shows are performed using dialogue from the tapes. A playwright and future nemesis of Eddie and Mitchell named Gregg Gibbs writes a one act play with Pete and a murderous Ray as characters. Even Devo samples the dialogue for one of their songs.