John Milius came up in Hollywood during what Harrison Ford calls “the second California gold rush”, with Spielberg, Coppola, Schrader, and Lucas. Destined and almost enthusiastic about going to Vietnam, Milius’ asthma kept him out of the war and he ended up at USC, then one of only three film schools in the country. He is a big bear of a man, a gun toting, messianic type making mythical, primal films. He wrote Dirty Harry, Magnum Force, The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean, the Indianapolis speech in Jaws (which was 10 pages, but edited down to 5 by Robert Shaw so he could remember the material), and Apocalypse Now, and he parlayed his writing into directing (Dillinger, The Wind and The Lion, Conan the Barbarian, Red Dawn).

This documentary is loaded with fond remembrances of late 60s and 70s Hollywood, Milius’ crazy persona, and his distinctive approach to filmmaking. It also includes a forthright discussion about Milius’ banishment as a right-wing pariah after Red Dawn. Despite these strengths, the film is almost wholly uncritical, never once mentioning, for example, that Red Dawn is awful for reasons having nothing to do with its politics. The picture is also pat and sentimental, weighing the eccentricities of its subject against his ethics and determining the latter is to blame for any professional damage. Still, after Milius is near-bankrupted by his accountant, it is heartbreaking to learn that he tried to become a staff writer for Deadwood, and uplifting to know that Rome got him back in the game.

When I was in a college band in the 80s, I played on one LP. We recorded it in Richmond, VA over a hurried couple of days and had the audacity to call it Hits, one of many mistakes associated with the disc.  But the songs on the record were a marked departure from what the songwriter had written before. It soon became apparent (at least to me) he was under the influence of Big Star, if not melodically, in the bold choice of record name.  That said, it was a long time ago, and I may be making this all up.

Big Star would influence much better bands (The Replacements and REM, to name two) and Big Star’s first two records – #1 Record and Radio City – are, as affirmed by the critics and other interviewees in this documentary, mind-blowingly great.  Exhibit A–

The documentary, however, is merely good. While it does a creditable job of showing how the band, under the direction of Alex Chilton and Chris Bell, came together and missed its shot at the golden ring, its coverage of the aftermath is alternatively listless and revealing. Particularly surprising is the time given to the peculiarities of Chilton and Bell after Big Star failed to make it. Disappointing is the meager attention given to the actual music, and make no mistake, those first two records are seminal. Instead, the film spends an inordinate amount of time on, in the words of one contemporary, Chilton’s “self-absorption, self-focus, [and his use of ] drugs and alcohol.” The documentary whizzes by Big Star’s 3rd record but offers a lengthy exploration of Chilton at his worst, his foray into punk and then a gruesome endeavor called Panther Burns.

As for Bell, the film does better with his story after Big Star missed its shot. In the words of one interviewee, Bell just “lost interest in bands period. He just wanted to hear his songs not translated.” He also became a born again Christian, told his brother “you should do drugs. It takes away your sexual urges”, and eventually found himself working at a local restaurant. But Chilton reconnected with Bell, and the result was an astonishing single, I Am the Cosmos, that harkened back to the sound of the first two records.

Much of the weaknesses of the documentary are inescapable. Bell and Chilton are dead (Bell died in a 1978 car accident, Chilton in 2010 of a heart attack) and they were extreme introverts while alive. In their stead, however, the film does a great justice to the broad music community in Memphis. And it wisely ends true to the form in the last 20 minutes, with a host of acts providing testaments and tributes to the band and its influence.

The central conceit of Ain’t In it for My Health, the documentary of The Band’s recently deceased drummer, Levon Helm, is that its subject is compelling enough to sustain interest in his daily chatter, visits to the hospital and scattered observations. It’s not.

Helm is closed off, we learn from a fellow musician, because “Levon’s got demons he’s struggling with over this whole Band legacy.”

If you dropped Fat Boy over Japan, I can see you struggling with demons over your legacy.  In contrast, it is tough not to juxtapose Helm’s bitterness with an excerpt from a recent article I read on Bob Dylan: “Now, though, he was out on his own – after eight years’ abstinence, just as rock touring reached new debauched depths. The Band had roadies take Polaroids of girls wanting to get backstage, poring over potential beauties like horse-traders. Cast-offs were handed to the crew.”

Still, I was game.  Helm’s issues with The Band and posterity’s treatment of same could be interesting.  Of Robertson, Manuel, Danko and Hudson, their travels and impact, Helms says that . . . . “the credits and the money” on the third Band record was a “screw job” (Robertson was the writer and got the royalties) and after that, well, it was pretty much all over.

That’s the whole of it.

Otherwise, Helm just broods and ambles and lounges amongst younger acolytes (including Billy Bob Thornton) and these scenes are interspersed with nature photography of Helm’s property in Woodstock, NY.  Near the end, surviving wives and girlfriends tell us that the real downfall of The Band was drugs and alcohol.

Mind. Blown.

On the plus side, there’s some nice old footage of The Band, some later footage of Helm who played live not long before his death, and the portrait of the musician at the end of his career, with cancer ravaging his voice, can be poignant

When I saw there was a critically acclaimed documentary about The Shining, I purposefully read nothing about it so I could come to it fresh. Well, that was a mistake, because Room 237 has very little to do with the making of Stanley Kubrick’s horror masterpiece. Instead, it fleshes out the interpretations of the film by a bunch of lunatics. To them, The Shining is about the genocide of the American Indian, or the actual Holocaust, or it contains hundreds of subliminal sexual images, haunted demons sexually attracted to humans, feeding off of them. Or it is about impossible interior design, or the real history of the state of Colorado, or when Barry Nelson meets Jack Nicholson, the file folder at his crotch level is really a boner.

I’m sure there are other interpretations, but I turned this stupid documentary off before getting to all of them. An utter disappointment, a colossal waste of time and shit sound to boot.

Back in the Eisenhower administration, I was in a band blessed by a distinctive lead singer, a virtuoso guitarist and a very strong rock drummer.  I was pretty much in awe of their playing (I was a passable rhythm guitarist converted to a fledgling bass player and mainly tried to stay out of the band’s way). Watching Beware Mr. Baker, a documentary on the life of legendary Cream and Blind Faith drummer Ginger Baker, his musicianship (a maniacal blend of jazz and African styles), reminded me of the fact that a crapload of really gifted players are drawn into pop music.  Of those players, I’m most fascinated by the work of drummers, be it Keith Moon’s “lead” drumming or Ringo’s Starr’s apt choices on a few cuts (Rain, Tomorrow Never Knows), perhaps because it is an instrument I cannot even comprehend.  Who the hell can move their arms and legs at the same time to a musical purpose?  It’s witchcraft, I tell you.

Baker was shockingly adept and seemingly original (I say “seemingly” because my knowledge of the history of drumming is lacking). Yet, as the documentary points out, he was also mercurial, peripatetic and volatile, which is a nice way of saying he was a drug-addled dick who plagued his bandmates (Eric Clapton is interviewed and while kind to Baker, seems almost like a hostage survivor), tortured his family, pissed away any goodwill he may have engendered and split town when things got hairy.

Now, he is a cantankerous, chain-smoking recluse in South Africa, whinging on about the injustices delivered to him, or just generally shitting on all but a few folks he respects. This may have been a recipe for boredom, but documentarian Jay Bulger intersperses Baker’s snide reminiscing with impressive footage of his playing days, interviews with contemporaries and family that are refreshingly non-hagiographic, and inventive animation.

The result is an engaging, occasionally illuminating documentary about a talented asshole.

This documentary doesn’t chronicle the decline of Detroit so much as provide a pastiche of the city’s current plight through the eyes of union workers, street folks, a bar owner, a video blogger, and various other denizens. While there is a faint whiff of class warfare, mainly dramatized by juxtaposing the opulent Detroit opera house (subsidized by the auto companies) with the rundown bleakness of the surrounding area, the thrust of the documentary is visual rather than thematic or political. The regular haunts and isolated neighborhoods are shot in extended, mournful stretches, the people are captured reminiscing in their natural element, and the depiction of the old abandoned structural dinosaurs of the city evokes dystopian films and the work of Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre.

The gaudy nouveau riche feel, stately-meets-Glamour Shot portraits on the wall, grotesque adornment (including a gold throne), spoiled kids with Filipino nannies and a house staff of 19, stuffed dogs, fake tits, boasts of having gotten George W. Bush elected by illegal means (wink, wink), all presented within the framework of a family who wants to move from a 16 bathroom mansion to a Florida Versailles, well . . .  you cannot wait for the fall of this cretinous couple, Jackie and David Siegel, the latter self-titled The Time Share King.

But as you watch them lose it all after the 2008 market crash, it is hard not to root for them.  There is something endearing about Jackie’s limo ride to McDonalds, and there is a down-to-earth quality about the family, as well as a toughness in the adversity.  But when the staff is downsized, and the house goes to shit (even the tropical fish and pet lizard die), and Jackie actually says, “I never would have had so many kids without a nanny,” well, the schadenfreude returns.

This documentary says a few things about resilience, greed, the American dream, status (Jackie’s take on TARP – “I thought it was supposed to go to the common people . . . You know . . . us” – is priceless) and excess, but it doesn’t preach or instruct, which is its greatest strength (so many documentarians force what they capture into a desired narrative).  It is content to record a fascinating story about one very unique American family caught from their zenith to a fall (which didn’t last long).

This documentary chronicles the work of Act Up in the fight against AIDS and in combat with the government, drug companies and the Catholic Church.  It is comprehensive, informative, and fleshed out by contemporaneous film and video.  As a historical exemplar, the documentary is important, and it establishes the heart and success of the group, especially in the fight to expedite the testing of drugs and application to lower their cost and expand accesss. Unfortunately, the documentary lacks introspective moments save for internal strife on drug approval speed after one of the first therapies, AZT, turned out to be a mixed bag (a splinter group, TAG, resulted).  There is a moving but very brief depiction of a schism in the organization, punctuated by Larry Kramer boiling over at a particularly contentious and petty meeting.  Still, the primary goal is as a testimonial. At no point does a participant say, “yea, that was a mistake” or “it turns out that protest was self defeating or counterproductive.”

There is plenty of video of protests and emotional speeches, as well as Reagan hung in effigy, Bush golfing, Anthony Fauci being cavalier, it being beyond discussion that these men are to some extent murderers all. While the work of Act Up was critical, and the documentary is inspiring, ultimately, this film is a little monotonous and reverential. This oral history project of Act Up, particularly the interviews of Mark Harrington and Kramer, serve as an accompaniment while underscoring some of the stories left untold and themes left undeveloped. Perhaps it is Kramer’s Hollywood background, but his interview is chock full of nuggets, greater exploration of some of which might have made this good documentary great:

(on GMHC) There had to be – you had to take people whether they were good or not, because they represented certain genders or certain colors.

* * *

Yes. There was a lot of flak from people like Maxine [Wolfe] about going inside, when we were finally able to go inside. And I said, “Are you crazy? Of course, you go inside! They let you inside! What can you do from the outside?” You can only go so far on the outside. I’m convinced that the destruction – well we can get to that later, but – the destruction of ACT UP was the severing of this dual nature. What destroyed ACT UP was when Treatment and Data picked up their marbles and went somewhere else, leaving only the bad guys, so to speak.

* * *

(on the schism of Act Up and TAG) LK: Because they became drunk on hubris – drunk on their brains, drunk on the very things Maxine predicted, I might add. They were drunk on their power. They could sit down with the head of Bristol-Myers or the chief scientists. They could call all these people up and they could do it on their own from then on, and they didn’t need anyone fighting on the outside for them. And perhaps they became a little ashamed of us, I don’t know. But I will never forgive them for it. I feel that strongly about it – to this day. Mark and I don’t talk – haven’t for years. I don’t know. I don’t know. You don’t know how close I came to dying a couple of years ago because of the Hepatitis B in my liver. I was given six months to live. I don’t know if you remember – I looked like this. And, I had no energy. And they told me – that was the end, because livers were not available. And the days were ticking away. Just prior to that, Dr. Fauci – the man I had called a murderer many years before – has become one of my closest friends. Talk about a moving story of irony. He saw me somewhere and he said, “You look terrible.” And they put me in the NIH hospital, and they discovered a lot of this shit, that had not been discovered in me before.

* * *

SS: Which one of these drugs do you feel exist as a consequence of ACT UP? LK: All of them. I have no doubt in my mind. Those fucking drugs are out there because of ACT UP. And that’s our greatest, greatest achievement – totally.

* * *

You’ve got Koch in New York City, you’ve got Krause at the head of NIAID, which is the most important institute at the NIH for looking after infectious diseases, and we’ve got this prick in the White House, who’s got a supposedly gay son. It’s a famous story. All the heads of the various institutes can live in their own houses. It looks like a college campus – it’s very pretty. And the head of NIAID was a guy called Richard Krause, and he invited me out to lunch, and his assistant was a guy called Jack Whitescarver, and they gave me all this bullshit about – there was money for this, and money for that, and this is happening and column A, and column B – and I called him on everything. And he had to leave and the dishes were all there, so Jack Whitescarver and I washed the dishes in this house. And I had to go to the john, and I went upstairs – there was only one john on the second floor. And coming out of the john I look into this bedroom, and there are bookcases and things and photos all around. What writer isn’t nosy? This one certainly is. So, I go in the bedroom and on Krause’s bureau are pictures of him with all these guys in bathing suits. And I say, “Holy fucking shit, this guy is gay!” And I go downstairs and I say – Whitescarver whispers to me, “I want you to know that my friend and I just loved Faggots.” So I looked him in the eye and I said, “Jack, is Krause gay?” Not a sound.

* * *

SS: Larry I forgot something that I wanted to ask you, and this is just a personal question. I remember at Vito Russo’s funeral, you made this speech where you said, “We killed Vito, don’t you know that? Can’t you see that?” And I remember feeling as I was sitting there, that I was not the appropriate target of that speech. That was just a personal reaction that I had, sitting there. And I’m wondering if you have had any hindsight on that kind of rhetoric or that sort of approach? LK: You’re too sensitive. I have tried, in my time, many kinds of rhetoric – you read Reports from the Holocaust and there are many attempts at different tactics and voices. Sometimes you need one, sometimes you need another. You keep looking. You make it up as you go along. When Vito died, everybody was dying, and there still weren’t that many people out there fighting, so we did kill Vito. And yes, you were a target – everybody was a target – as many people that were in that room, it didn’t equal the membership of ACT UP. I yell at gay people, still.

This is a fun, smart documentary that chronicles the fall of George Lucas in the eyes of his fans and mines their conflicted attitudes towards a man they belove yet revile.  At root, it’s a story about how gods disappoint.

The social impact of Star Wars can be overstated (one fan references Shakespeare), but there is no denying that Lucas’s 1977 film was revolutionary not only in how it changed movie entertainment, but in its creation of a legion of fans dedicated to its ethos.  They just don’t just love Star Wars; they revere it and deem it participatory in their lives.  They wear the outfits, make their own film homages (the clips of these movies are the highlight of the documentary), buy the toys and products and countless DVD releases, and endlessly debate the impact of the film.  And the nature of its creator, who once gave them sun and now provides only darkness.  This goes beyond Spock ears.

The first third of the documentary shows Lucas’s rise from geeky auteur, hostile to the Hollywood machine, to corporate titan, overseeing not just Star Wars but the technical transformation of Hollywood films in general.  And then the fun begins. First, Lucas re-envisions his Star Wars trilogy.  He brightens things up, adds some more incredible effects, and best (or worst, if you’re an acolyte), changes a few scenes.  The ensuing furor is atomic.  Fans are particularly incensed that Lucas changed the character of Han Solo, who in the original picture shot a bounty hunter point blank, but in the “re-envisioning” returned fire only after the bounty hunter shot first (the bounty hunter missed from 2 feet, a failure that makes fans apoplectic).  As one disgruntled fan notes, “It’s as if Martin Scorsese cut out some killing from The Departed because he realized he had an 8 year old son.”

As fun as the collective kvetching is over that change, the roil becomes greater when the fans attack Lucas’s decision to erase the first cut of the trilogy.  I did not know this, but you can’t get a DVD of the original movies.  Lucasfilms even intimates that the original prints are destroyed.  And boy does this make the Star Wars fans nutty.  They point to the hypocrisy of Lucas’s opposition to Ted Turner’s colorization of black-and-white films and say, collectively, “Aha!”  You can almost see Lucas in a dark room, on a throne, wickedly chuckling at their discomfort.

While the outrage over Lucas’s authoritarian control over his original work is pitched, the response to the release of his execrable second set of films is a hilariously bitter pill.  Oh, did these folks want to love those films, having waited sixteen years for them. And their recollections of how they felt when they realized the pictures sucked are almost heartbreaking.  One fan explains that he saw The Phantom Menace over a dozen times hoping he would just get it.

The documentary is really made by the fans who gave the interviews. Their love is pure, their hostility to a Jar Jar Binks poetic, and yet, they all seem to have a good sense as to how ridiculous they look as grown ups incensed, and even enslaved, by George Lucas.