The Screengrab : robert crumb

Screengrab's Favorite Movies About Music: Non-Fiction Edition (Part Five)

Andrew Osborne — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 22:00:00 GMT

Phil Nugent's Favorites:

LOUIE BLUIE (1986)

Terry (Crumb, Ghost World) Zwigoff made his first movie when he got a load of Howard "Louie Bluie" Armstrong, a veteran singer/musician -- he played guitar, fiddle, and mandolin -- and raconteur, then in his mid-seventies, and decided that such a one should have his passage among us mere mortals properly recorded. A natty, courtly hedonist, Armstrong seems to embody the spirit of self-invention and robust folk art at its least genteel and polite whether he's playing comic blues, razzing his buddies, or proudly showing Zwigoff his homemade "encyclopedia of pornography." He may be everything that Zwigoff's later leading man, Robert Crumb, ever really wanted to be; he is definitely from that otherwordly place that the vintage record collector played by Steve Buscemi in Ghost World invokes when Enid asks him if he has any other records like the Skip James version of "Devil Got My Woman" he sold her, and he can only shrug, "There are no other records like that." Armstrong died in 2003 at the age of 93, eight years after releasing his first solo album.

ROCK THE BELLS (2006)

Denis Hennell and Casey Suchan's documentary records the first annual Rock the Bells hip hop festival, held in 2004 in San Bernadino, California. The performance segments include on-stage glimpses of such rappers as Redman and Dilated Peoples, as well as the final reunion of the full membership of the Wu-Tang Clan, but the real star and hero is the concert organizer and promoter, Chang Weisberg, a starry-eyed hustler who refinanced his house to make the event a go, pressed his wife and mother into service at a site where most guys would be trying to arrange for emergency air support to get any loved ones they had choppered out of the area, and, most crucially, bet his future on his ability to bring together a bunch of unpredictable people on the same stage because, first and foremost, he wanted to see it happen himself. Most of the Wu-Tang were so dazzled by the young fellow's sheer gall that they could scarcely wait to get on-stage, but Ol' Dirty Bastard, a more dependable source of drama than three-quarters of the screenwriters in Hollywood, made it as far as his hotel and just stopped, refusing to get up from his bed and come to the auditorium. The suspense is terrific as RZA commandeers a cell phone and tries to cajole his old teammate to show up, telling him that he's never in all his days seen "so much love for the Wu-Tang." Meanwhile, Redman and MC Supernatural are doing an extended freestyle number to appease a crowd with its phasers set on "riot." In the nick of time, ODB reports for duty, and though he isn't up to much besides sitting in a chair onstage while the other rappers make a joyful noise around him, nobody seems to mind. Despite the movie's sad coda -- ODB would die four months later -- it stands as a tribute to the best let's-put-on-a-show entrepreneurial spirit of hip hop. It may leave you half-convinced that, if these guys had been put in charge of the invasion of Iraq, people in Baghdad would have been tooling happily down Chuck D. Boulevard by the end of 2003.

SAY AMEN, SOMEBODY (1982)

People who assume that black gospel music as we know it is an indigenous folk creation going back centuries may feel a little woozy if they see George T. Nierenberg's documentary and stare into the face of Thomas A. Dorsey, a pianist-composer known as "the father of gospel music," and for good damn reason: he pretty much invented the genre and wrote the core body of classic gospel hymns, including "Take My Hand, Precious Lord" and "Peace in the Valley", and is even credited with coining the term. Dorsey had been a raunchy bluesman performing under the name "Georgia Tom" until his wife died in childbirth and he turned to religion to assuage his pain. Dorsey, who was born in 1899 and lived to be 93, was already a prolific blues composer when he devoted his life to "sacred" compositions, and when he began to apply his considerable professional mastery of his craft to songs of praise, and added his own brand of showmanship from his new perch as music director of Chicago's Pilgrim Baptist Church, the results moved people in a spasmodic way that at least passed for a religious experience. Filthy hedonists such as those who read and write for this site can argue about the nature of that experience, but the performance segments of this film, featuring some of the singers who came to form a holy honor guard around Dorsey, make a strong case that if there is a God, he never came up with a better ad campaign for Himself.

THE T.A.M.I. SHOW (1964)

There have been a lot of attempts over the course of the rock era to pull together a single performance event that would crystalize the moment in pop by summing up everything worth experiencing at its best. Some of these, from Monterey Pop to Lollapalooza, have earned their own legends, but none got closer to the top of the mountain than this humble TV production, directed by Steve Binder (who later spearheaded Elvis Presley's 1968 comeback special) with Jack Nitzsche on board as musical director, which was briefly released to theaters by A.I.P. (The title is an acronym for, depending on which press release you read, "Teenage Awards Music International" or "Teen Age Music International".) The lineup included Chuck Berry, Marvin Gaye, Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, Diana Ross and the Supremes, Lesley Gore, the lovably scruffy where-are-they-now garage band the Barbarians (best known for their hook-handed drummer, Moulty), and the closing act, the Rolling Stones. With rare uniformity, though, everyone seems to agree that the high point was provided by James Brown and the Famous Flames. The footage is an invaluable record of James at his most hardest-workingest; while his backup men stand behind him, diligently hitting their marks as if the boss had eyes in the back of his head and a scope rifle aimed at their hearts, he shouts, "Are you ready for the 'Night Train'!?" at the fresh-scrubbed white kids in the audience, who do their noisy best to assure him that, yes, they'd like nothing better than to make its acquaintance. The dance moves he then unleashes so impressed the crowd that they responded with a thunderous ovation, and so impressed Mick Jagger that Binder almost had to force him out onstage at gunpoint. Keith Richards later said that agreeing to follow Brown was the worst thing the Stones had ever agreed to do, and he said this after Altamont.

TOM DOWD & THE LANGUAGE OF MUSIC (2003)

Mark Moormann's consistently entertaining documentary makes the case for Dowd -- a recording engineer and record producer who died in 2002, while the film was being completed, at the age of 77 -- as the Zelig of jazz, rhythm and blues, soul, and Southern rock. Drafted into the military during World War II, Dowd spent part of his youth working on the Manhattan Project. After the war, he planned to get his college degree studying physics, only to learn that this would entail his having to pretend to know less about physics than he already knew, because certain advances in the field to which he'd been privy as part of his work for the government were still classified as state secrets. So instead, he went to work for Atlantic Records, where he helped popularize eight-track recording and stereo sound, and became legendary for his ingenuity in helping the label's roster of artists, ranging from Ray Charles and the Coasters to Charlie Parker, Ornette Coleman, and Thelonious Monk, capture the sounds in their heads. His influence was quick to spread down South through Atlantic's ties to the Stax soul machine. In his interviews here, Dowd comes across as the Gandalf of soundboard tech geeks, wise and affable with a pair of heaven-blessed ears, and to judge from the conga line of witnesses (including Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin, Eric Clapton, Ahmet Ertegun, and Jerry Wexler) lining up to sing his praises, he doubled as the Johnny Appleseed of good vibes. His story has the same effect as the music he helped to capture: hearing it makes you feel good.

Click Here For Part One, Two, Three, Four, Six & Seven

Contributor: Phil Nugent

Screengrab Salutes: The Top 20 Animated Feature Films (Part One)

Andrew Osborne — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 20:00:00 GMT

So, according to our very own Scott Von Doviak, Star Wars: The Clone Wars may not exactly be on the short list for this year’s Best Animated Feature Film Oscar, although, to paraphrase Warner Bros. head of distribution Dan Fellman, awards, critical praise and boffo box office were never really the point, since the movie, essentially, "was targeted to a specific audience for specific reasons [i.e., to promote the upcoming Cartoon Network series of the same name]. We accomplished that mission, and it will continue in another medium."

That crazy dreamer! Just goes to show that, when it comes to animation, even studio execs can get swept up in the magic that happens when pencils, paint, pixels, Plasticine modeling clay or paper cut-outs meet persistence of vision and insane amounts of patience.

According to our old friend, Wikipedia, “The earliest form of animation is a 5,200 year old earthen bowl found in Iran in Shahr-i Sokhta which has five images painted along the sides. When the bowl is spun, it shows a goat leaping up to a tree to take a pear.” (And, ironically, scientists have since determined the bowl actually received better reviews and a higher per-screen average than The Clone Wars...but I digress.)

Anyway, the aforementioned bowl may or may not be included in NEXT week’s list of The Screengrab’s all-time favorite animated shorts, but in-between then and now (get it? get it? I’m here all week! Try the veal!) please join us for a very special Screengrab salute to the greatest animated features of all time!

PINOCCHIO (1940)

It’s possible my family would disown me if I didn’t include this classic of old-school Disney animation since, according to legend, this is the movie that my grandfather Joe took my grandmother Louise to on the night he proposed. (Awwww!) Personal family history aside, it’s hard to argue with Pinocchio as a prime example of traditional American cel animation. Oh, sure, Snow White and Sleeping Beauty had scarier witches, The Jungle Book had Louis Prima and Bambi traumatized an entire generation, but Jiminy Cricket is one of the all-time iconic animated characters, Monstro the Whale is pretty fucking bad-ass, the Pinocchio nose bit launched a zillion stand-up routines and political cartoons and, between my grandparents’ love story and childhood memories of melancholy end-of-the-weekend episodes of The Wonderful World of Disney, “When You Wish Upon A Star” is embedded deep enough in my DNA that all the shitty cover versions and cynical Disney ad campaigns from then 'til now still haven’t managed to dislodge its pure, essential sweetness from my black little heart.

FRITZ THE CAT (1972)

The film that opened up brand-new horizons for scores of boomer spawn that accidentally stuck this in the VCR, mislead by the cartoon cover. Fritz, a Village denizen in a turtleneck sweater, discusses James Baldwin, scores with NYU chicks, starts a race riot and smokes a whole hell of a lot of grass. This was the first animated feature to be rated X. Yet the cartoon depictions of bathtub group sex amid pink clouds seem rather tame in this post-Britney age. The film is based on Robert Crumb's eponymous comic. However, Crumb did not like the film much. He felt it was, "really a reflection of Ralph Bakshi's confusion, you know. There's something real repressed about it. In a way, it's more twisted than my stuff. It's really twisted in some kind of weird, unfunny way."

AKIRA (1988)

Katsuhiro Ôtomo’s epic film adaptation of his own bestselling manga series isn’t just one of the best animated features of all time; it’s also one of the most important. Simply on its aesthetic merits, Akira is a winner: the cyberpunk-suffused story of a near-future Tokyo plagued by gangs and facing the threat of an uncontrollable teenage psychic is visually stunning, packed with detail, and suffused with unstoppable energy. The script is deep and complex, but never so deep that it gets in the way of the dynamic action sequences; every frame seems to burst with color, motion and power. It’s also well-acted, well-written, and surprisingly sophisticated in its use of music and sound. But beyond its merits as a film, it truly opened up the gates for “Japanimation”; what was previously the occupation of a relatively small number of hobbyists became the obsession of a whole generation of fans. Future anime productions would find millions of new admirers, and older movies and TV series would gain a brand-new audience, often leading to their first-ever home video releases in the west. The runaway popularity of Akira likewise lead to a new interest in manga comics, as fans of the movie tracked down the comic it was based on, establishing a new and insatiable western audience for Japanese serial comics. A live-action remake is currently in the works and scheduled for release sometime in 2009, but even if it can capture the thrilling visual imagery of Ôtomo’s animation, it can’t hope to duplicate the massive cultural impact of the original.

TOY STORY (1995)

Nowadays, the word “Pixar” associated with a movie is practically a guarantee that we’re going to get a smart, funny, technically astounding animated film that will be enjoyable for both kids and adults. But back in 1995, before Toy Story was released, there was a certain feeling of dread that accompanied the announcement of its production. We’d all seen computer animation, and to be honest, we weren’t all that impressed. It was thought of as a heartless, soulless medium, the playground of technicians, not artists. And at the very least, it wasn’t something that Disney Studios – the people responsible for the greatest animated features of all time – should be associated with. Once we actually got a look at it, though, all fears were laid to rest: Toy Story was a revelation. Its visuals were light-years beyond anything we’d seen at the time; it’s certainly been surpassed on a yearly basis since then, but even viewing it now, it’s hardly an embarrassment. But aside from the technical revelation of what computer animation was capable of, the story was downright terrific. It was driven by its characters, not its gimmicks; and, avoiding the trap that would befall many of its followers, its humor was driven by situations and not empty pop-cultural references. Though the precedent it set of using already-famous celebrities instead of established voice actors to voice the characters was a bad one, here the choice is unimpeachable, as Tom Hanks, Wallace Shawn, and even Tim Allen give performance perfectly attuned to their characters. Combine all of this with a timeless story and a terrific score by Randy Newman, and you begin to realize how Pixar got its sterling reputation in the first place.

Click Here for Part Two, Part Three, Part Four; Part Five

Contributors: Andrew Osborne, Sarah Sundberg, Leonard Pierce

Take Five: HBO

Leonard Pierce — Fri, 30 May 2008 18:45:00 GMT

Sex and the City: The Movie opens everywhere that Cosmopolitans are sold today, and the odds are pretty good that it will make enough money to keep Sarah Jessica Parker in sundresses for the rest of her life. There is little doubt as to whether or not the movie -- based on the inescapable HBO original series -- will be successful; the real question is whether or not it's going to be any good. One thing is for sure: it will at least make more money than the other films that have been made out of HBO's original television programming. They're a pretty dismal set of money-losers and critic-displeasers, ranging from the not good (Tenacious D in the Pick of Destiny) to the very bad (the Mr. Show movie, Run Ronnie Run) to the completely awful (the Tales from the Crypt spin-off Bordello of Blood). If the long-rumored Deadwood movie ever gets made, or if the Sopranos movie doesn't turn out to be a disappointment, this may change things, but in the meantime, HBO's television shows have yet to produce a movie worth watching. Less known, however, is that HBO has a production arm that has put out a number of worthwhile films, many of which had theatrical releases prior to their run on the pay cable network; some of them, in fact, were released exclusively for theatrical release through HBO Films or their sister company, Picturehouse FIlms. With their overseeing company, New Line Cinema, dead, the future of HBO Films is uncertain, but given the quality of their past releases, they're sure to find a new home somewhere with parent company Time/Warner. Here's five fine films that were released under the HBO Film distribution banner.

AMERICAN SPLENDOR (2003)

The first, and arguably the best, of a rash of terrific film releases by HBO Films in the mid-2000s, Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini's inventive (and sometimes elusive) documentary about underground comics writer Harvey Pekar stands alongside the remarkable Crumb as a compelling, if sometimes troubling, look at an American original. The comparison is by no means coincidental: legendary cartoonist Robert Crumb is a longtime friend of Pekar's, and the man he first recruited to illustrate his stories of the struggles, victories, humiliations and triumphs of everyday life. If it's a little disengenuous to claim that Pekar is the indestructably normal person he claims to be (and it is -- normal people, after all, do not compulsively and sometimes brilliantly catalog the minutia of their lives in autobiographical comics), there's nothing at all phony about Pekar, his everyday heroism, the skewed attitude and refusal to surrender to the diificultues of an ordinary life, or his irascible and cynical -- if never openly cruel -- sense of humor.

ELEPHANT (2003)

The first of a series of collaborations between HBO Films and director Gus Van Sant, Elephant is the best of the lot -- and may in fact be one of the finest films of the decade. Inspired by the horrific mass murder at Columbine High School, the fragmented, almost dreamlike story of a pair of alienated high school students who go on a shooting rampage is a meditation on violence unlike any other in recent cinematic history. Elephant is a quiet, open, almost meditative film, breaking off to follow one character after another in order to present the day of the shooting as resolutely normal; but its greatest trick is to constantly dangle in front of us tantalizing 'clues' to the motivation of the killers, only to have every one of them lead to an unproductive, uncomfortable dead end. After the final bloodbath, we have an almost tangible need to know the whys and wherefores of the senseless killing, but the movie is wise enough to deny us an easy solution to an impossibly difficult question, and is brave enough to believe in its director's vision and leave us hanging without a quick fi or an easy scapegoat.

DEATH IN GAZA (2004)

One of the least partisan -- and most tragically unbearable -- documentaries about the Israeli-Palestine conflict was the 2004 film Death in Gaza, which concentrated largely on the impact the war had on children in the area. Focusing on a quartet of Palestinian kids, all in their early teens or younger, who take up arms against their occupiers, Death in Gaza neither exculpates the bad behavior of the kids (their anti-Semitism is extremely uncomfortable, especially from children so young) or glosses over why they might be so driven to militancy and violence (we are constantly exposed to the insufferable living conditions into which they are born and raised, and every one of them has a jaw-dropping horror story about the death of a friend or relative). What makes the move especially harrowing is that its 34-year-old British director, James Miller, was himself killed by the Israeli Defense Forces while filming in Gaza at night, a typically stupid, futile, and enraging event that is captured on film and shown matter-of-factly during the course of the documentary. Powerful and sad.

MARIA FULL OF GRACE (2004)

Joshua Marston's feature about a young Colombian teenager who becomes a drug mule in order to raise money for her impoverished family is filmed in such an effective, simple neorealist style -- and manages to so effectively encapsulate one of the most degrading yet banal aspects of the dehumanizing aspects of capitalism -- that it's hard to avoid comparisons to De Sica's The Bicycle Thief. And while it's not even remotely in that film's league, it's still very much a movie worth watching, updating De Sica's themes for a post-socialist age, and it does at least have one advantage over its spiritual forebear: the presense of the heartbreaking, compelling, fascinating lead actress, Catalino Sandino Moreno. The then-17-year-old Moreno turns in one of the most watchable yet tragic performances in recent memory as a headstrong, intelligent girl who has nonetheless begun to move in circles who will shape her into something she cannot control; it's almost impossible to take your eyes off her from the beginning of the movie to the end.

THE NOTORIOUS BETTIE PAGE (2005)

The Notorious Bettie Page, a serviceable if never stunning biography of the legendary 1950s pin-up queen, was brought to us by the writer/director team of Guinevere Turner and Mary Harron. The duo also was responsible for the highly problematic American Psycho, and Harron also directed the truly discomfiting I Shot Andy Warhol. While its problems are different (a lack of depth and a somewhat flat visual style, neither of which were the difficulties with Harron's other movies), it does reflect the curate's egg nature of all three films. Clearly, it wasn't a movie made to do nothing more than titillate, but by the same token, we walk out of the theater knowing precious little more about the notorious Bettie Page than we did when we came in. That said, it shares with the other films a great deal of energy and feeling, and is supported by the sort of tremendous central performance Harron seems to coax so easily out of her stars -- Gretchen Mol is easily the equal of Christian Bale or Lili Taylor, and it's her charm and control in the role that makes this a movie worth watching.

D. K. Holm Fundraiser at Portland's Cinema 21 This Sunday

Phil Nugent — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 15:30:00 GMT

We've reported on this before, so this is just a timely reminder: this Sunday, April 27, Cinema 21 in Portland (616 NW 21st Avenue, phone 503-223-4515) is holding a fundraiser for critic, author, and Screengrab contributor D. K. Holm. The website says that Holm, who has written books on Robert Crumb and Quentin Tarantino, "is suffering from a very treatable case of esophageal cancer. However, he is also, as he puts it, 'the American nightmare' -- uninsured and facing thousands of dollars in medical bills for chemotherapy and surgery." The event will include a silent auction and entertainment including a "compilation of D.K. Holm's many appearances in the films of James Westby" and "Portland luminaries reading some of D.K.’s most deliciously vitriolic reviews and hate mail." Those who may be able to unable--if say, you, like some of us, have the misfortune to not live in Portland--but would like to make your presence felt on the dance floor can send contributions directly to D. K. Holm at P.O. Box 4146, Portland, OR, 97208-4146.