The Wrecking Crew

Posted on March 26, 2015 at 9:48 pm

B+

Lowest Recommended Age:	Middle School
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG for language, thematic elements and smoking images
Profanity:	Some strong language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Smoking
Violence/ Scariness:	Some sad stories
Diversity Issues:	A theme of the movie
Date Released to Theaters:	March 27. 2015

Copyright Lunch Box Entertainment 2015 — Copyright Magnolia 2015

Maybe you like Frank Sinatra and your friend likes the Mamas and Papas. Maybe you’ve argued about who is better, the Beach Boys or Simon and Garfunkel, or maybe you prefer Elvis. Each of those monumentally talented performers had a highly distinctive sound but each of them was backed by the same group of astonishingly talented and remarkably versatile studio musicians known as “The Wrecking Crew.” Like other behind the music documentaries 20 Feet from Stardom, Only the Strong Survive – A Celebration of Soul, Standing in the Shadows of Motown, and Muscle Shoals, this is a riveting look at the people just outside spotlight. They may be every bit as good as the performers they stand behind, but for some reason — less charismatic, less determined, less in need of attention, less lucky, they do not get to be stars.

The Wrecking Crew backed up Bing Crosby, Glen Campbell (who was a Wrecking Crew member before he moved to the front of the stage), Herb Alpert, Cher, Nancy Sinatra, and the Monkees. The list of iconic albums that they didn’t play on is shorter than the one they did. Just as unforgettable as the timbre of the voices of superstars are the deedle-deedles or doot-doots (and the dum-dum-dum dum of the “Mission Impossible” theme song) and other musical cues and curlicues that make a song a hit. This movie has the pure joy of creating unforgettable music, and a satisfying chance to appreciate literally unsung heroes, but it also has loss and betrayal and secrets.

This is a love letter from filmmaker Danny Tedesco to his late father, one of the Wrecking Crew musicians, and those like him, who gave their best and were loved all over the world by fans who had no idea who they were. When Brian Wilson of The Beach Boys” tells us that Carol Kaye is the best bass player ever, it is impressive. When she shows us how she played the licks at the heart of “Good Vibrations,” it is soul-stirring. This is also a story that speaks powerfully to all of us who feel that our contributions are not as valued as they should be. And of course, it has some of the greatest music ever made, now to be listened to more thoughtfully and appreciated more than ever.

Parents should know that this movie has some sad stories, some strong language, and smoking.

Family discussion: Would you rather be a star or a studio player and why?

If you like this, try: 20 Feet from Stardom, Only the Strong Survive – A Celebration of Soul, Standing in the Shadows of Motown, and Muscle Shoals

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Jean-Michel Cousteau’s Secret Ocean 3D

Posted on March 20, 2015 at 7:00 am

B+

Lowest Recommended Age:	Kindergarten - 3rd Grade
MPAA Rating:	Not rated
Profanity:	None
Alcohol/ Drugs:	None
Violence/ Scariness:	Reference to predators
Diversity Issues:	None
Date Released to Theaters:	March 20, 2015

Jean-Michel Cousteau begins this dazzling underwater documentary with archival footage of his father’s pioneering work in showing us life in the other two-thirds of the planet. And then he uses the latest technology to bring those flickering monotone images up to date with spectacular visions of exquisite sea animals shaped like plants, a 30-pound snail that eats food to make it taste bad to predators, a creature that looks like a pile of twigs and has no head and no blood but can regenerate its appendages, a candy-cane striped shrimp, all in a world exotic, strange, and wondrously interdependent with our own. Plankton, we learn from narrator Dr. Sylvia Earle, is not just the source of food for many of the creatures who live in the sea (and who themselves are food for other animals), but the source of much of the oxygen we breathe. The environmental message is subtle, but powerful. These creatures cannot survive without us and we cannot survive without them.

The images are stunning beyond words, but it would have been nice to get more information about the locations and habits of the animals we are observing. Still, this is as spectacular a series of images and as provocative a series of characters as you will see on any screen this year.

Scheduled venues for Jean-Michel Cousteau’s Secret Ocean 3D:

01 – DIGITAL3D – February 20, 2015 – Oregon Museum of Science & Industry, Portland (OR)
02 – IMAX3D – February 27, 2015 – The Henry Ford Museum IMAX Theatre, Dearborn (MI)
03 – DIGITAL3D – March 6, 2015 – Moody Gardens 3D Theater, Galveston (TX)
04 – IMAX3D – March 20, 2015 – Indiana State Museum IMAX 3D Theatre, Indianapolis (IN)
05 – IMAX3D – March 20, 2015 – Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History Samuel C. Johnson IMAX, Washington (DC)
06 – IMAX3D – April 3, 2015 – Montreal Science Center Telus IMAX 3D Theater, Montreal (QC)
07 – IMAX3D – April 16, 2015 – New England Aquarium Simons IMAX Theatre, Boston (MA)
08 – IMAX2D (DOME) – No later than April 20, 2015 – Planetario Puebla Omnimax Theater, Puebla (Mexico)
09 – DIGITAL3D – May 22, 2015 – Houston Museum of Natural Science 3D Theater, Houston (TX)
10 – DIGITAL3D – May 23, 2015 – New Mexico Museum of Natural History Lockheed-Martin DYNA Theatre, Albuquerque (NM)
11 – DIGITAL3D – June 12, 2015 – Milwaukee Public Museum 3D Theater, Milwaukee (WI)
12 – DIGITAL3D – July 10, 2015 – American Museum of Natural History 3D Theatre, New York City (NY)
13 – IMAX3D (DIGITAL) – No later than August 30, 2015 – Challenger Learning Center IMAX, Tallahassee (FL)

Trailer: Documentary About Illustrator Hilary Knight of “Eloise” and “Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle”

Posted on March 11, 2015 at 8:00 am

I have loved Hilary Knight’s illustrations for as long as I can remember. The words about Eloise, the little girl who lives in New York’s Plaza Hotel, were written by nightclub singer Kay Thompson. But the illustrations were by Hilary Knight, and I pored over them for hours because they were do detailed, witty, and expressive. Later, when I first read Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle, I recognized Knight’s penwork right away.

Lena Dunham (“Girls”) loves Eloise and Knight so dearly she has an Eloise tattoo. She spoke to the New York Daily News:

“I think so many young women were obsessed with Eloise’s unruly magic,” she said. “She’s just such a remarkably independent, vanity-free, complex little girl, and as a little girl you don’t see that many representations of yourself beyond a good little child with pigtails. So it was meaningful.”

And now she has made a documentary about Knight called, “It’s Me, Hilary,” that will be on HBO, premiering March 23, 2015.

Watch This Year’s Documentary Oscar Winner Free Online: CitizenFour

Posted on March 7, 2015 at 8:00 am

“CitizenFour,” the Oscar-winning documentary about Edward Snowden, is free online.

Whether you consider him a hero or a traitor, it is well worth watching, and considering the fragile balance between privacy and national security — and who decides.

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Documentary

Tribute: Documentary Pioneer Albert Maysles

Posted on March 6, 2015 at 3:05 pm

We mourn the loss of film visionary Albert Maysles, who with his brother David, showed us a new way to see film and a new way to see the world. They were the first Americans to create intimate, unstructured documentary storytelling without experts talking from behind their desks or extended narration. This is “direct cinema,” the distinctly American version of French “cinema verité.” The Maysles brothers were the first to make non-fiction feature films where the drama of human life unfolds as is, without scripts, sets, or narration. In part, this was due to their way of looking at the world, which was open-hearted and non-judgemental. But it was also due to changes in technology since the very earliest days of documentary. In 1960, he said, “With the equipment we have today, which is directly descended from the equipment we made; you could go beyond the illustrated lecture for the first time. These innovations made it possible to get what was happening so clearly and directly that the person viewing the film would feel as though he was actually present at those events. For the first time, it was possible for someone watching a documentary to feel as though he was standing in the shoes of the person he was seeing onscreen.”

Maysles’ subjects had lives that were in some ways ordinary, like those of us in the audience. Salesman was about door-to-door Bible salesmen. He said, “There are daily acts of generosity and kindness and love that should be represented on film.”

But he also made extraordinary films about extraordinary lives. Perhaps his most famous was Grey Gardens, about “Big Edie” and “Little Edie” Beale, relatives of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis who continued to live in their crumbling East Hampton mansion with no money and very little contact with the outside world. The movie was later adapted into a hit Broadway musical and a movie with Drew Barrymore.

He filmed Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, the Who, Otis Redding, and the Mamas and the Papas.

He filmed the Rolling Stones.

He filmed Paul McCartney.

He said,

As a documentarian I happily place my fate and faith in reality. It is my caretaker, the provider of subjects, themes, experiences – all endowed with the power of truth and the romance of discovery. And the closer I adhere to reality the more honest and authentic my tales. After all, the knowledge of the real world is exactly what we need to better understand and therefore possibly to love one another. It’s my way of making the world a better place.

May his memory be a blessing.