Memphis folk-rock stalwart and MVMfrequentflyerMark Edgar Stuart‘s got a new album coming out called Until We Meet Again. “It’s a quasi-concept album about life, love, and afterlife,” he says.
The lead single, “What’s Louder Than Love?” exemplifies the mood of the record, which Stuart calls “Nothing too heavy, and nothing too personal … My past videos have been melancholy, so this time I wanted to come out swinging with something upbeat and light-hearted. I figured after the past two years we’ve had, who wants to hear more sad shit?”
Bassist Landon Moore directed the video. “It was 100 percent his vision,” says Stuart. “All I did was just walk around Midtown and hang out with some of my favorite Memphis people — mostly those who worked on the record like my two producers Reba Russell and Dawn Hopkins, plus musician pals Will Sexton and Shawn Zorn. There’s tons of great cameos too including Keith Sykes, Jerry Phillips, and Matt Ross-Spang … Making this video was an absolute hoot. My favorite scene is Steve Selvidge and Rod Norwood airing out their Facebook rivalry on camera.”
If you’d like to see your music video featured on Music Video Monday, email cmccoy@memphisflyer.com.
If you've ever wanted to know what it felt like to push Tom Holland out of an airplane, Uncharted is the film for you!
The Super Bowl is over (who won again?), and you’re looking to get out of the house and catch a flick. You’ve got a lot of variety to choose from in Memphis theaters this weekend.
The big debut is Uncharted, a $120 million adaptation of the hit video game series starring Mark Wahlberg and the spider-guy who is arguably the biggest movie star in the world right now, Tom Holland. Zombieland director Ruben Fleischer’s film is an origin story for Uncharted‘s fortune hunter Nathan Drake, and an action-adventure in the tradition of Raiders of the Lost Ark and Tomb Raider. Judging from the trailer, you’ll believe 15th-century caravels can fly!
The other new release this weekend is Dog, starring Channing Tatum as a PTSD’d vet of the War on Terror who gets a simple assignment: Drive a decorated war vet to their partner’s funeral. What seems like a milk run turns into a nightmare when the passenger turns out to be a total bitch.
But now, the real reason I’ve called you all together here on Al Gore’s interwebs: One of you is a MURDERER! Well, not really (But maybe? Who knows?), but that’s what Agatha Christie’s fastidious detective Hercule Poirot says in Death on the Nile. Kenneth Branagh plays Poirot and directs an all-star cast, including Annette Bening, Russell Brand, and a champagne-swilling Gal Gadot, in this adaptation of Christie’s quintessential detective mystery.
If that’s not enough Kenneth Branagh for you (and really, can anyone have enough Branagh in their life?), Belfast, his black-and-white, semi-memoir of growing up in Ireland during the Troubles is still at Malco Ridgeway. The film was nominated for seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Supporting Actress for Dame Judi Dench.
If you’re looking for a total disaster, Roland Emmerich has got you covered with Moonfall. Realism has never been his strong suit, nor has logic or taste or respect for basic norms of filmmaking, and this one is no exception. You’ll believe the moon can’t fly!
And finally, if you can’t believe a boat can fly, or that a dog can earn a purple heart (spoiler alert: they can), or that Kenneth Branagh is interesting, or literally anything about Moonfall, maybe you’ll believe that extremely hot person Jennifer Lopez can be hot for comedic sad-sack Owen Wilson. If that’s the case, then set sail for rom-com island with Marry Me.
If, on the other hand, you’re done with the pretty lies of “romance,” Emily Rooker welcomes you to Music Video Monday.
Rooker is a Memphis based singer-songwriter and a member of the Memphis Flyer’s 20<30 Class of 2018. In “Don’t Come Home,” she’s giving the final brush off to a lover who has been neglecting her for too long. “How long do you think I’ll wait? / All alone and keeping faith / I’m not running, running, running looking for you / I’m not waiting any longer, baby / I’m through.”
She created this spectacular video with DP and editor Mitchell Carter, who shot Alex Hensley (another 20<30 alumnae), Mariah Venzant, Krystal Jackson, and Kristian Thomas doings some truly twisted pole dancing. Along the way, the girls get to go full Charles Foster Kane on the boudoir. And really, is there anything more satisfying than trashing a room after a bad breakup?
The video, which was shot at the Bartlett Performing Arts Center, will appear in the upcoming Venice Short Film Festival. Enjoy!
If you’d like to see your music video featured on Music Video Monday, email cmccoy@memphisflyer.com.
The trio of Keith Cooper, Frank McLallen, and Graham Winchester have been playing together since high school. They rock as The Sheiks, they’ve backed up Jack Oblivian, and, with the addition of Jesse James Davis, they play both kinds of music — country and western — as the Tennessee Screamers.
“Maria” was written by McLallen and recorded at Sun Studios by Crockett Hall, with Eric Lewis guesting on pedal steel.
Davis (who is often mistaken for Memphis Flyer editor Jesse Davis, and vice versa) directed this music video in 2021. “Almost a year ago, we invaded the drive-in to make a music video,” says Davis. “I finally finished it after a busy year back gettin’ educated at U of M. A lot of thanks to throw out on this one: Leanna Carey for shooting some vid on the river one fine spring day; cameos from Michael Jasud, Linton and Grace; thanks to Laurel and Charles for letting us shoot at the Lamplighter”
Cooper says, “The city of Memphis once again proved to be a fine palette for the various locations needed to be shot. From the muddy banks of the Mississippi to the commode that Jasud’s ass rested upon at the Malco Drive-In.”
The lo-fi video drama sees McLellan being chased by Cooper and Winchester, presumably for eating beans and stealing the affections of the titular Maria. “I am glad I can use my position as editor of the Memphis Flyer to promote my own work,” says Davis*.
If you would like to see your music video featured on Music Video Monday, email cmccoy@memphisflyer.com.
*Jesse James Davis, musician, comedian, and filmmaker, not Jesse Davis, musician and editor of the Memphis Flyer. I know. It’s complicated.
The good part about having a virtual Sundance pass is the wealth of great films it provides. The bad news is that, since you’re not fully immersed in the Park City bubble, real life goes on, and you may not get to watch everything that looks good. I’ve certainly been feeling that tension over the last week, and trying to be judicious with my picks. That means skipping everything that will be shown this weekend at Crosstown Theater as part of Indie Memphis’ satelite screening program.
A still from “What Travelers Are Saying About Jornada Del Muerto” by Hope Tucker.
The exception was the short film “What Travelers Are Saying About Jornada Del Muerto,” the short film by Memphian Hope Tucker, which will screen Saturday, January 29, at Crosstown. It’s essentially montage of shots from the Trinity test site in Alamogordo, New Mexico, where the first atomic bomb was detonated in 1945, overlaid with online reviews from people who visited as tourists. You know me, I love the experimental stuff, and this one certainly scratched that itch.
Colin Farrel in After Yang (Image courtesy Sundance Institute)
Through happenstance, I watched two films in a row that dealt with the thorny question of our relationship with artificial intelligence. The first was After Yang, which was one of the first films I added to my schedule when the Sundance website went live. Mononym-ed director Kogonada adopted a short story from Alexander Weinstein that recalls the Brian Aldiss classic “Supertoys Last All Summer Long,” which became Steven Spielberg’s A.I. Artificial Intelligence. When Jake (Colin Ferrel) and Kyra (Jodi Turner-Smith) adopted a daughter Mika (Malea Emma Tjandrawidjaja) from China, they wanted to make sure she felt connected to her roots, so they purchased Yang (Justin H. Min), an android who would be a surrogate older brother. Now, Mika is four years old, and Yang is a trusted part of the family. But when he suddenly malfunctions (in a great scene that shows the family competing in an online dance game), Jake runs into trouble. He bought Yang as a refurb from a fly-by-night store that isn’t there any more, and the manufacturer won’t honor the warranty. When he consults a gray market android repair service, he uncovers the secrets of Yang’s past, and the independent existence his “son” had hidden from him.
After Yang looks great, and the underlying story is strong, but it only has one speed. Ferrel and Turner-Smith are both more than capable, but they are reserved to the point of flatness. The film is interesting, but more admired than loved by me.
David Earl and Charles Hayward in Brian and Charles (Courtesy Sundance Institute)
The other half of my inadvertent A.I. double bill took an entirely different approach. Brian and Charles by Welsh director Jim Archer is a comedy about an eccentric inventor (David Earl, who shares a writing credit on the film) who is tired of developing the egg belt and pinecone bag, and decides to swing for the fences by building a robot. He succeeds beyond his wildest dream, and his creation dubs itself Charles. Brian is an unlikely Dr. Frankenstein, and he throws himself into parenting his creation, who progresses to toddler stage very quickly. Brian wants to shield Charles from the dangers he knows come with being an outsider, but the robot wants to explore and see the world. Their little household is thrown into crisis when Brian’s jerky neighbors discover Charles and steal him to work on their farm.
Brian and Charles is charming, with a pair of good performances by the leads and a well-attuned screenplay. But the jokes never rise above the chuckle level, and the indie film quirk level is set to “cloying.” Still, I enjoyed both After Yang and Brian and Charles for their thoughtfulness.
Aubrey Plaza breaks bad in Emily the Criminal. (Courtesy Sundance Institute)
Aubrey Plaza was the driving force behind Emily the Criminal, as she found the screenplay by John Patton Ford and spearheaded the production by agreeing to take on the title character. Emily is struggling as a caterer in Los Angeles, even though she has a degree that would qualify her for high-paying advertising jobs. She has a DUI on her record, because she was the least-wasted person in her friend group that went to a music festival, and had the bad luck of getting pulled over when she tried to drive everyone home. One of those friends (Megalyn Echikunwoke) is trying to help her get a good job out of guilt, but nobody wants to hire a felon. Meanwhile, a co-worker steers Emily toward a lucrative freelance opportunity: working as a “dummy shopper” using stolen credit card information to buy big screen TVs, which are then sold on the black market. Emily quickly learns that she can make a killing crime-ing, but she’s torn between the promise of the straight life and going full Walter White — especially since her natural talents seem to lean toward breaking bad.
Plaza, like many who started out in comedy, is an incredibly good actor when she turns her timing and control toward drama. Ford’s screenplay is a finely honed machine, and the jittery camerawork works perfectly, especially in a harrowing scene where Emily has to brazen her way through a car heist while surrounded by gangsters twice her size. You can be forgiven if you get a strong Uncut Gems vibe from Emily the Criminal, but I loved this film.
Maika Monroe gets paranoid in Watcher by Chloe Okuno. (Courtesy Sundance Institute)
Another strong entry in the narrative category is Watcher by director Chloe Okuno. A slick, Hitchcock-by-way-of-De Palma riff on Rear Window, the film is driven by some ace production design (one thing this Sundance has in abundance is great-looking interiors) and a charismatic performance by lead Maika Monroe as Julia, a newlywed who abandons her acting career to move to Romania with her husband, where she finds mostly ennui with a side order of menacing peeping tom.
Lucy and Desi (Courtesy Sundance Institute)
The nonfiction films continue to be very strong this year. Lucy and Desi is a passion project for Amy Poehler. Given full access to the Desilu archives and the couple’s personal effects by daughter Luci Arnaz Luckinbill, Poehler’s film goes a lot more in-depth into Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz’s unlikely and historic relationship, and explores the couple’s unrivaled legacy of television innovation more than the recent biopic starring Nicole Kidman and Javier Bardem (which was infected with a terminal case of Sorkin-ism).
The Janes (Courtesy Sundance Institute)
The best doc I saw at Sundance is also superior to the fictionalized version of the story. The Janes from directors Tia Lessin and Emma Pildes is the story of the Chicago-area feminist collective which provided illegal abortions in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The clearly told doc features some incredible interviews with people on both sides of the issue, including the policemen who ultimately busted the Janes in 1972. The cast of characters, it turns out, were much more interesting in real life, and the film’s stories of the day to day, cloak and dagger proceedings of the group, and the darkly funny story of how it all came apart, just exposes what an incredible missed opportunity its Sundance selection Call Jane was. The Janes is an HBO production that will premiere on the company’s streaming service later this year, and it is not to be missed.
Sundance wanted to return to a fully in-person festival for its January 20th-30th run, but the coronavirus pandemic had other plans. Luckily, when it became obvious that the omicron variant was spreading uncontrollably, and a 40,000 person gathering in Park City would have been a non-stop superspreader event, there were already plans in place to repeat the virtual programming the venerable film festival instituted last year.
After two years of rolling pandemic shutdowns, the film community is used to online festivals. Even in non-pandemic times, the virtual option is great for cinephiles who can’t attend in person. But that doesn’t mean all the kinks have been worked out yet.
Sundance is embracing virtual reality, with a program of various VR works and a festival village inside a virtual space station. This glimpse of the metaverse future is less Ready Player One and more Second Life. The biggest lesson from the festival’s opening weekend is, don’t cross the streams of cinema and VR.
The opening feature, 32 Sounds, is an experimental documentary by Oscar-nominated filmmaker Sam Green that does what it says on the tin. It’s an exploration of sound as a phenomenon that is designed to be watched while wearing headphones. Much of the sound was recorded using binaural technology, which uses multiple microphones and physical models of the human ear to create recordings that sound more authentically “wild” than even stereo. It’s a fascinating concept, once you get into the movie’s headspace, so to speak. The problem was the opening program was presented in a virtual recreation of the Egyptian theater in Park City, a real-life festival hub. Technical issues delayed the beginning of the program, which meant that when the virtual screening period ended, everyone was unceremoniously kicked out of the virtual theater before the film was over. We got 25 sounds, tops! There are a several more potentially interesting VR events on the schedule, but after that experience, I have not been back to the metaverse.
Luckily, the vast majority of Sundance’s offerings are presented in a more conventional streaming format, with both limited-time premiere slots, designed to increase audience participation by ensuring everyone is watching at the same time, and longer, second-run slots to catch up on films you missed because of conflicts. This flexibility was great for me, as I was juggling a huge work project at the same time. It has not, however, been great for my sleep schedule. But I guess staying up way too late is an authentic film festival experience.
Finn Wolfhard and Julianne Moore in When You Finish Saving The World.
My takeaways from the first weekend are that the documentaries have so far been better than the narrative films, and that the foreign narratives have been much better than their American counterparts. Take the case of Jesse Eisenberg’s feature directorial debut When You Finish Saving The World. It has a crackerjack cast including the great Julianne Moore as the burned-out head of a nonprofit who runs a shelter for domestic violence victims, and Stranger Things’ Finn Wolfhard as her son, a streamer who has attracted a small but growing audience with his folk-rock songs. The actors struggle to create well-rounded characters, but Eisenberg, who also wrote the film, doesn’t know what to do with them. The struggle between mother and son to communicate through the teenage years ultimately goes nowhere, and the impression you’re left with is that both of these people are kind of jerks, anyway.
Elizabeth Banks in Call Jane (Courtesy of Sundance Institute | photo by Wilson Webb.)
Call Jane is by director Phillis Nagy, most familiar as the writer of Carol, which is one of those films whose list of accolades is so long it merits its own Wikipedia page. It gets off to a promising start, with Joy (Elizabeth Banks), a housewife in 1968 Chicago, diagnosed with a life-threatening heart condition. She’s also pregnant, but carrying the baby to term will almost certainly be fatal for both of them. When the all-male hospital ethics board denies her physician’s request to authorize an abortion, Joy seeks out the services of Jane, an underground organization of feminists who arrange abortions for the desperate. After Jane, led by a flinty Sigourney Weaver, helps Joy, she gets sucked into helping other women in similar plights.
The tension of suburban good-girl Joy leading a double life as an illegal abortion doula propels the first two acts of the film, but when it’s time for a climax, Nagy whiffs. The real-life Jane collective operated in Chicago for years until it was finally busted, and its leaders were awaiting trial for murder and conspiracy when the Roe v. Wade verdict was handed down. That’s some high drama, especially considering in this film it would be Sigourney Weaver in peril. But Call Jane instead omits the police raid (it’s mentioned as having happened off screen during the epilogue) and opts instead for a useless adultery subplot between Joy’s lawyer husband (Chris Messina) and their widow neighbor, played by Kate Mara. What could have been the feminist version of Judas and the Black Messiah instead fizzles into banality.
Renate Reinsve in The Worst Person in the World.
Much more successful is the Norwegian import, The Worst Person in the World, by director Joachim Trier. It’s a flight-footed romantic comedy, shot through with magical realism and a heavy Bergman influence that sometimes put me in mind of Ira Sachs. The film is grounded by a generous performance by Renate Reinsve as Julie, a young woman in Oslo who falls in love with a graphic novelist named Askel (Anders Danielsen Lie) 15 years her senior. The episodic film is told in 12 chapters, with a prologue and epilogue, which map out vital events in the course of their relationship as they meet cute, grow apart, break up, and reconcile in the most melancholy way. The film is funny and sad, and all the characters feel like real people.
Sinéad O’Connor in Nothing Compares by Kathryn Ferguson (Courtesy of Sundance Institute | photo: Independent News and Media.)
Speaking of real people, the documentary side of the equation has a pair of killer biographies. Nothing Compares is the story of Sinead O’Connor’s meteoric rise to fame, and the painful history behind her songs. O’Connor is best remembered today for getting canceled after a protest at the end of a performance on Saturday Night Live, where she ripped up a picture of the Pope. But as the film reminds us, the specific thing she was protesting was the Catholic church’s ongoing cover-up of pedophile priests preying on congregants. Time has proven her absolutely right on that issue, just as it has about everything else she says in the film’s wealth of archival footage. O’Connor paid the price for being ahead of her time.
Katia and Maurice Kraft in Fire of Love
The first big sale out of Sundance’s film market was Fire Of Love, a documentary about volcanologists Katia and Maurice Kraft by director Sara Dosa. The Krafts devoted their lives to studying volcanos, but they seemed to be just as drawn to the insane risks they were taking as they filmed lava rivers and pyroclastic flows at point-blank range. Fire of Love is a great combination of idiosyncratic love story and spectacular footage of fire fountains, It’s sure to be a crowd-pleaser when it sees wide release.
The Strokes tear it up in Meet Me In The Bathroom.
Last year’s festival was a hotbed of great music docs, including the transcendent Summer of Soul and the inventive The Sparks Brothers. Dylan Southern and Will Lovelace’s chronicle of the millennial Brooklyn music scene, Meet Me In The Bathroom, doesn’t approach those heights. There’s no shortage of great footage of The Strokes, Interpol, and LCD Soundsystem in the film, and the directors effectively make the case for the scene’s enduring influence. Specifically great is the treatment of The Yeah Yeah Yeahs singer Karen O, which pairs explosive performance footage with a confessional interview. But the film is plagued by bad choices, such as inexplicably throwing Frank Sinatra’s “When I Was Seventeen” and Ace Freley’s “Back In The New York Groove” into the middle of a film about indie rock.
The opening image of Saul Williams and Anisa Uzeman’s Neptune Frost.
The find of the festival for me so far has been Neptune Frost by poet Saul Williams and director Anisia Uzeyman. I’m not even sure I can put this one in a clean category, but I’ll go with “Afro-futurist cyberpunk musical.” Shot on location in the countryside of Rawanda, it concerns a group of refugees from the harsh realities of war and economic exploitation who retreat into an alternate dimension to wage guerrilla war on The Authority. At least that’s part of it. It’s complicated.
Neptune Frost’s budget was minuscule, but it does everything right. It’s visually stunning, thanks to some incredible costumes and set design, as well as cinematography that punches way above its weight. The opening image literally made me say “wow” out loud. The directors stage full-on musical numbers with live singing in places like the jungle and a strip mine where rare earth elements are extracted to produce the electronics you’re reading this on right now. The songs are great, combining disparate elements like synth-pop, hip hop, high life, soca, Sondheim, and juju, with lyrics in five languages. The whole project’s perspective is bracingly revolutionary, but one banger after another makes it go down smooth. You’ll be bopping along and suddenly realize they’ve got you chanting “Fuck Google!” In the mixed bag of Sundance 2022, Neptune Frost is the first bona fide masterpiece
“Breath of Fire,” the first single from Sellmore, is a breathlessly urgent banger produced by C Major, who shared duties on the album with longtime AWFM collaborator Kid Maestro. Even though the hook celebrates “me all by myself,” AWFM brought in an electrifying new talent, Slimeroni, to trade verses. “It’s pure Memphis energy,” says AWFM. “I’ve always loved the back and forth between men and women rappers from Memphis, and thought nobody could provide a more dope contrast than Slime. Us on a track feels like carrying the torch correctly in that art style.”
The video, which is a lo-fi throwback to the days when the only way you could see Memphis rap was on bootleg VHS tapes, was produced and directed by Bell Toll Media. Strap in — and if you’re at work, I hope you’re wearing headphones.
If you would like to see your music video featured on Music Video Monday, email cmccoy@memphisflyer.com.
Producer Brady Tackett is best known in Memphis for his work on Don Lifted’s 325i album. You can hear an expansion of the dreamy electronica he brings to the table on his new album Spring Final, out Friday Jan. 14 on Alpha Pup records under the name Night Park (listen here).
“Loggers in Eden” goes down nice. Night Park’s sound is soothing, but not simple; atmospheric, but focused. The video, created by Memphis video artist Kaleob Elkins, layers nature footage using AI Greenscreen to snip out the backgrounds while jacking up the color to vivid levels. If you’re having a frazzling Monday morning, take 2:37 worth of audiovisual comfort food.
If you would like to see your music video featured on Music Video Monday, email cmccoy@memphisflyer.com.
Meet Dolphin Man. He’s a new hero for the new year, and the subject of the first single from Jeremy Scott’s new album Bear Grease. Scott will be spending some of 2022 on the road as the bassist for Reigning Sound. But he’s also got an extensive solo catalog, as the leader of the power pop revivalists Toy Trucks, and now his new self-titled solo project, which features Scott on guitar, bass, and vocals, and Graham Burks on everything else.
“Fred Neil Armstrong” is about everyone’s favorite cetacean invading dry land. The video, directed by Aquarian Blood’s J.B. Horrell, stars Lauren Goller as Dolphin Man, having adventures among the legged. The best part is when Dolphin Man tries on the octopus hat. But don’t take my word for it. Dive in!
If you would like to see your music video featured on Music Video Monday, email cmccoy@memphisflyer.com.
‘Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the house, things were really weird.
Just in time for your Saturnalia celebrations, something new from Memphis’ favorite experimental filmmaker Ben Siler. “Christmas at Midnight” is from Robby Grant’s 2020 album Put A Quarter In The Christmas Vending Machine, and it represents a darker take on the holiday season. Siler, no stranger to darkness himself, rose to the occasion with this music video. Starring expat actress Kim Howard and a host of Memphis talent (including yours truly, who provided sets), this one is for everyone who feels frog marched through Yuletide joviality. Happy holidays, and enjoy the world premiere of “Christmas At Midnight”!
