3 Recent Screenings

Alive Inside

Alive Inside is a documentary about Dan Cohen, a nursing home volunteer who discovered exposing seniors with dementia to the music of their youth can relight their memories and personalities.

Here’s the deal:  when we’re growing and our brains are still in supersponge mode (a period that lasts roughly from birth through our mid-20s), the music of our youth gets encoded deep in our brains – way back near the stem.  If dementia sets in, that’s the last part to go.  Thus, it’s possible to light up the brain once more by triggering those musical memories.

This isn’t to imply that iPods cure dementia.  It appeared that patients slipped back into their hazes some time after the music stopped.  Nevertheless, while the music played, these people were themselves again in a fundamental way.

That’s a thing of beauty.

Fury

Fury is a by-the-numbers WWII picture, just like they used to make.  Brad Pitt is the grizzled, fatherly first sergeant.  Jon Bernthal is the hick; Shia LeBeouf the preacher; Michael Peña the alcoholic, and Logan Lerman the New Guy.

They hit many of the same beats as the dogfaces from the great Lee Marvin film The Big Red One, and the film doesn’t have much to offer in the way of surprises.  But if you like war movies, you’re sure to like this one.  It touches all the bases.

Hot Tub Time Machine 2

Rude, crude, and mildly amusing, Hot Tub Time Machine 2 is the perfect movie to fold laundry by.

Music Double Feature

CBGB

CBGB tells the true(ish) story of Hilly Kristal, the owner of New York nightclub CBGB.  

CBGB, of course, was the epicenter of the Punk Rock movement and a launching pad for acts such as The Ramones, Blondie, The Talking Heads, and The Police.

Alan Rickman (CDNW) plays Krystal, a man with no business sense but a great ear for music.  Rickman’s just wonderful: slovenly, disorganized, kind of a jerk, but totally good-hearted; it’s difficult to see that man in this role and imagine him as anything else.

As for the story, well, I imagine that your response to this movie will depend on your affinity for the subject matter.  If you care about the history of alternative music in general (and punk rock in particular), this movie is for you.  If not, well, it’s a peek into a subculture that wasn’t your thing to begin with.  As for me, the soundtrack alone made it a great film to have on in the background while sorting through paperwork, even though it doubled the time required for my project because I kept putting it down to focus on whatever Rickman was up to next.  As such, I enjoyed CBGB.  I think I’ll buy the soundtrack.

Get on Up

Get on Up is a reasonably straightforward biopic, enlivened by an exceptional performance from 42’s Chadwick Bozeman.

This film, a James Brown biography, skips around the artist’s life to show us, warts and all, what this man was about.  A canny businessman, a relentless self-promoter, an artistic genius, a wife beater, a tax cheat, and an all-around SOB, Brown alienated pretty much everyone on his way to the top, and he kept on alienating them once he got there.

But man, that artistic genius part.  That’s really something. 

Chadwick Bozeman captures all of it, with a lightning-in-a-bottle performance that spans a hardscrabble youth, electrifying performing career, and drug-addled old age.  From the speaking voice to the dance moves to the odd, almost palsied shuffle, the actor has James Brown right on down.  The film is worth seeing for him alone.

As an aside, the film captured the imagination of my 15-yr-old, who’s on something of a ‘60s music and history kick.  I see some James Brown CDs infiltrating his regular Doors/Stones/Hendrix rotation in the very near future.

Zack and Miri Make a Porno

How do you write up a movie that's so remarkably meh?

ZACK AND MIRI MAKE A PORNO isn't funny, but it isn't bad enough to engender outright hatred. It just sits there, like a joke no one laughs at, but without a follow-up joke to sweep it off the stage.

Kevin Smith's jokes don't sing. His tempo is repetitive. He goes for shocking humor, but his shock humor isn't shocking. As a director, he makes Elizabeth Banks overemote so dramatically that I thought she was going to burst out of her skin nearly every time the camera focussed on her.

But the film isn't hateful. It isn't mean spirited. It's downright sweet, so I can't hate it. It's just there, an amusing premise gone wrong. I wanted to like ZACK AND MIRI MAKE A PORNO. I really did. But the film is just plain too much a failure to let me.