Tag: 2015

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Letter From The Editor Opinion

You’re Getting Warmer!

Halloween was spookier than usual this year in Memphis, with the temperature topping out at a record 87 degrees. It was so hot that one of my colleagues here at the Flyer posted a picture of himself diving into his backyard pool. Now that’s spooky.

It appears that October 2016 will likely be the hottest October ever recorded for this area. It follows September 2016, which was the second-hottest September ever recorded around here. It’s not just us. It’s the entire planet. NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) says September 2016 was the warmest September in 136 years of record-keeping. It gets even better: July and August of 2016 tied each other for the “warmest month ever recorded.” Ever.

In fact, according to GISS, 2016 will crush the previous record for the hottest year, set in 2015, which eclipsed the previous record for hottest year, set in 2014.  Do you sense a pattern here? Scientists do. It’s a three-year run that’s never happened before in 136 years. In addition to our streak of record heat, much of the South and Mid-South is experiencing “extreme” and “exceptional” drought. Good times!

The Flyer reported earlier this week that the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has awarded Shelby County $60 million as part of its National Disaster Resilience Competition. The county plans to use the money to restore wetlands and flood plain areas to help protect area homes from the kind of massive flooding that occurred in 2011. HUD’s grant is also intended to assist the Wolf River Conservancy with mitigating future flooding and preventing soil erosion that could have negative effects on the Memphis Sand Aquifer — the source of our drinking water.

Predictably, even this bit of apparent good news was greeted by the usual, tired rhetoric of local climate-deniers in the article’s comments section. Climate change is “right up there with Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster, Elvis sightings, and Yeti,” said one wag. “As always,” he added, “follow the money.”

Yes, there are still people who deny climate change because they think 98 percent of the world’s climate scientists are in on some plot to make millions. Bwa-hahah!

“It’s called ‘weather,'” wrote another local anonymous genius. The comments then disintegrated into attacks on Hillary Clinton’s email server and Al Gore, and so forth.

Everything is tied to politics now. You can cite all the studies by all the reputable scientific organizations around the world, and it makes no difference. Some folks will find an outlier “study” to claim the earth is flat. And they’ll find politicians who will agree with them. If you cite a fact-checking organization, the other side will say that fact-checking organization is biased, and cite their own.

It’s been said that “everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts.” Wrong. We are now so polarized that we think we are entitled to our own facts. In fact, we can’t even agree what facts are.

But unless you don’t trust, you know, thermometers — or the scientists recording the temperature — you have to be an idiot to not at least acknowledge that the world has been getting warmer for decades. Denial is not a river in Egypt.

In fact, if we listen to the fools — and the politicians who cater to them — who urge us to ignore the findings of science, the Nile won’t even be a river in Egypt.

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Film Features Film/TV

The Year in Film 2015

It’s fashionable to complain about how bad Hollywood movies have become. But from the perspective of a critic who has to watch it all go down, it’s simply not the case. At any given time in 2015, there was at least one good film in theaters in Memphis—it just may not have been the most heavily promoted one. So here’s my list of awards for a crowded, eventful year.

Worst Picture: Pixels

I watched a lot of crap this year, like the incoherent Terminator Genysis, the sociopathic San Andreas, the vomitous fanwank Furious 7, and the misbegotten Secret in Their Eyes. But those movies were just bad. Pixels not only sucked, it was mean-spirited, toxic, and ugly. Adam Sandler, it’s been a good run, but it’s time to retire.

Actually, I take that back. It hasn’t been a good run.

Most Divisive: Inherent Vice

Technically a 2014 release, Paul Thomas Anderson’s adaptation of Thomas Pynchon’s ode to the lost world of California hippiedom didn’t play in Memphis until January. Its long takes and dense dialogue spun a powerful spell. But it wasn’t for everyone. Many people responded with either a “WTF?” or a visceral hatred. Such strongly split opinions are usually a sign of artistic success; you either loved it or hated it, but you won’t forget it.

Best Performances: Brie Larson and Jacob Tremblay, Room

Room is an inventive, harrowing, and beautiful work on every level, but the film’s most extraordinary element is the chemistry between Brie Larson and 9-year-old Jacob Tremblay, who play a mother and son held hostage by a sexual abuser. Larson’s been good in Short Term 12 and Trainwreck, but this is her real breakthrough performance. As for Tremblay, here’s hoping we’ve just gotten a taste of things to come.

Chewbacca

Best Performance By A Nonhuman: Chewbacca

Star Wars: The Force Awakens returned the Mother of All Franchises to cultural prominence after years in the prequel wilderness. Newcomers like Daisy Ridley and Adam Driver joined the returned cast of the Orig Trig Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher in turning in good performances. Lawrence Kasdan’s script gave Chewbacca a lot more to do, and Peter Mayhew rose to the occasion with a surprisingly expressive performance. Let the Wookiee win.

Best Memphis Movie: The Keepers

Joann Self Selvidge and Sara Kaye Larson’s film about the people who keep the Memphis Zoo running ran away with Indie Memphis this year, selling out multiple shows and winning Best Hometowner Feature. Four years in the making, it’s a rarity in 21st century film: a patient verité portrait whose only agenda is compassion and wonder.

Best Conversation Starter: But for the Grace

In 2001, Memphis welcomed Sudanese refugee Emmanuel A. Amido. This year, he rewarded our hospitality with But for the Grace. The thoughtful film is a frank examination of race relations in America seen through the lens of religion. The Indie Memphis Audience Award winner sparked an intense Q&A session after its premiere screening that followed the filmmaker out into the lobby. It’s a timely reminder of the power of film to illuminate social change.

Best Comedy: What We Do in the Shadows

What happens when a group of vampire roommates stop being polite and start getting real? Flight of the Conchords‘ Jemaine Clement and Eagle vs Shark‘s Taika Waititi codirected this deadpan masterpiece that applied the This Is Spinal Tap formula to the Twilight set. Their stellar cast’s enthusiasm and commitment to the gags made for the most biting comedy of the year.

Best Animation: Inside Out

The strongest Pixar film since Wall-E had heavy competition in the form of the Irish lullaby Song of the Sea, but ultimately, Inside Out was the year’s emotional favorite. It wasn’t just the combination of voice talent Amy Poehler, Bill Hader, Lewis Black, Mindy Kaling, and Phyllis Smith with the outstanding character design of Joy, Fear, Anger, Disgust, and Sadness that made director Pete Docter’s film crackle, it was the way the entire carefully crafted package came together to deliver a message of acceptance and understanding for kids and adults who are wrestling with their feelings in a hard and changing world.

It Follows

Best Horror: It Follows

The best horror films are the ones that do a lot with a little, and It Follows is a sterling example of the breed. Director David Robert Mitchell’s second feature is a model of economy that sets up its simple premise with a single opening shot that tracks a desperate young woman running from an invisible tormentor. But there’s no escaping from the past here, only delaying the inevitable by spreading the curse of sex and death.

Teenage Dreams: Dope and The Diary of a Teenage Girl

2015 saw a pair of excellent coming-of-age films. Dope, written and directed by Rick Famuyiwa, introduced actor Shameik Moore as Malcolm, a hapless nerd who learns to stand up for himself in the rough-and-tumble neighborhood of Inglewood, California. Somewhere between Risky Business and Do the Right Thing, it brought the teen comedy into the multicultural moment.

Similarly, Marielle Heller’s graphic novel adaptation The Diary of a Teenage Girl introduced British actress Bel Powley to American audiences, and took a completely different course than Dope. It’s a frank, sometimes painful exploration of teenage sexual awakening that cuts the harrowing plot with moments of magical realist reverie provided by a beautiful mix of animation and live action.

Immortal Music: Straight Outta Compton and Love & Mercy

The two best musical biopics of the year couldn’t have been more different. Straight Outta Compton was director F. Gary Gray’s straightforward story of N.W.A., depending on the performances of Jason Mitchell as Eazy-E, Corey Hawkins as Dr. Dre, and O’Shea Jackson Jr. playing his own father, Ice Cube, for its explosive impact. That it was a huge hit with audiences proved that this was the epic hip-hop movie the nation has been waiting for.

Director Bill Pohlad’s dreamlike Love & Mercy, on the other hand, used innovative structure and intricate sound design to tell the story of Brian Wilson’s rise to greatness and subsequent fall into insanity. In a better world, Paul Dano and John Cusack would share a Best Actor nomination for their tag-team portrayal of the Beach Boys resident genius.

Sicario

Best Cinematography: Sicario

From Benicio del Toro’s chilling stare to the twisty, timely screenplay, everything about director Denis Villeneuve’s drug-war epic crackles with life. But it’s Roger Deakins’ transcendent cinematography that cements its greatness. Deakins paints the bleak landscapes of the Southwest with subtle variations of color, and films an entire sequence in infrared with more beauty than most shooters can manage in visible light. If you want to see a master at the top of his game, look no further.

He’s Still Got It: Bridge of Spies

While marvelling about Bridge of Spies‘ performances, composition, and general artistic unity, I said “Why can’t all films be this well put together?”

To which the Flyer‘s Chris Davis replied, “Are you really asking why all directors can’t be as good as Steven Spielberg?”

Well, yeah, I am.

Hot Topic: Journalism

Journalism was the subject of four films this year, two good and two not so much. True Story saw Jonah Hill and James Franco get serious, but it was a dud. Truth told the story of Dan Rather and Mary Mapes’ fall from the top-of-the-TV-news tower, but its commitment to truth was questionable. The End of the Tour was a compelling portrait of the late author David Foster Wallace through the eyes of a scribe assigned to profile him. But the best of the bunch was Spotlight, the story of how the Boston Catholic pedophile priest scandal was uncovered, starring Michael Keaton and Mark Ruffalo. There’s a good chance you’ll be seeing Spotlight all over the Oscars this year.

Had To Be There: The Walk

Robert Zemeckis’ film starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Philippe Petit, the Frenchman who tightrope-walked between the twin towers of the World Trade Center, was a hot mess. But the extended sequence of the feat itself was among the best uses of 3-D I’ve ever seen. The film flopped, and its real power simply won’t translate to home video, no matter how big your screen is, but on the big screen at the Paradiso, it was a stunning experience.

MVP: Samuel L. Jackson

First, he came back from the grave as Nick Fury to anchor Joss Whedon’s underrated Avengers: Age of Ultron. Then he channeled Rufus Thomas to provide a one-man Greek chorus for Spike Lee’s wild musical polemic Chi-Raq. He rounds out the year with a powerhouse performance in Quentin Tarantino’s widescreen western The Hateful Eight. Is it too late for him to run for president?

Best Documentary: Best of Enemies

Memphis writer/director Robert Gordon teamed up with Twenty Feet From Stardom director Morgan Neville to create this intellectual epic. With masterful editing of copious archival footage, they make a compelling case that the 1968 televised debate between William F. Buckley and Gore Vidal laid out the political battleground for the next 40 years and changed television news forever. In a year full of good documentaries, none were more well-executed or important than this historic tour de force.

Best Picture: Mad Max: Fury Road

From the time the first trailers hit, it was obvious that 2015 would belong to one film. I’m not talking about The Force Awakens. I’m talking about Mad Max: Fury Road. Rarely has a single film rocked the body while engaging the mind like George Miller’s supreme symphony of crashing cars and heavy metal guitars. Charlize Theron’s performance as Imperator Furiosa will go down in history next to Clint Eastwood in Unforgiven and Sigourney Weaver in Alien as one of the greatest action turns of all time. The scene where she meets Max, played by Tom Hardy, may be the single best fight scene in cinema history. Miller worked on this film for 17 years, and it shows in every lovingly detailed frame. Destined to be studied for decades, Fury Road rides immortal, shiny, and chrome.

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Indie Memphis Day 8: The Man Who Would Be King

Tonight is the last night of Indie Memphis 2015. It’s been a very successful festival full of great movies and big crowds. The final film, which will screen twice tonight at the Halloran Centre, is the documentary Orion: The Man Who Would Be King. You can read my interview with director Jeanne Finlay in the Flyer cover story here. 


Indie Memphis Day 8: The Man Who Would Be King

There will also be a closing night reception where the Audience Awards are announced. I’ll have a wrap-up post about the festival tomorrow.

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Indie Memphis Day 7: A Bloody Good Time

Charisma Carpenter gets bloody in Girl In Woods

After a fantastic weekend filled with great films and events in Overton Square, Indie Memphis returns to the Orpheum Theatre’s Halloran Centre tonight with the documentary Breaking A Monster. Director Luke Meyer followed Unlocking The Truth, a talented metal band of 12- and 13-year olds whose talent and verve got them a record deal and thrust them, unprepared, into the swamp of the 21st century music industry. 

Indie Memphis Day 7: A Bloody Good Time

The second film at the Halloran Centre is Jeremy Benson’ horror tour de force Girl In Woods. You can read about the harrowing production in my interview with Benson in last week’s Flyer cover story. 

Indie Memphis Day 7: A Bloody Good Time (2)

Also tonight at the Halloran Centre is one of the many great panel discussions that Indie Memphis has been hosting this festival. If you’re a woman who works in video production or has interest in filmmaking, come out the Women Filmmakers In Charge panel with Indie Memphis Hometowner Feature Award winner Joann Self Selvidge; Orion: The Story Of The Man Who Would Be King director Jeanne Finlay, who is in town from Nottingham, England; veteran producer/director Sarah Fleming, who shared the Short Documentary award with Self Selvidge this year for “Viola”; and producer/director/editor Laura Jean Hocking. 

Back at Studio On The Square, there are two encore presentations. The first is Barge, this year’s Best Documentary award winner, and the second is the wild comedy Tangerine, which played on opening night of the festival. 

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Indie Memphis 2015 Day 6: Experiments and Pathos

Sunday brings two films featuring Kentucker Audley, the Memphis filmmaker, actor, and indie film advocate whose films Open Five and Open Five 2 both won Hometowner awards at past Indie Memphis festivals. 

Olly Alexander, Kentucker Audley, and Joslyn Jensen in Funny Bunny

In director Allison Bagnall’s Funny Bunny, Audley plays Gene, whom we meet going door to door trying to sign up people for a clearly doomed campaign against childhood obesity. Audley’s performance, which finds the unsettlingly funny territory explored by Bill Murray in What About Bob?, is one of a trio of great turns in the film. Olly Alexander (Enter The Void, Penny Dreadful) plays Titty, an apparently insane twenty-something living in an empty mansion who is the only person who responds to Gene’s pitch. Titty is obsessed with webcam girl Ginger, played by Joslyn Jensen, whose prickly, manipulative exterior is slowly revealed to be a front to hide deep, disconnected pain. The story of three misfits finding solace in each other is one of festival’s major highlights. 

Kentucker Audley in Christmas, Again

Audley also appears in Christmas, Again. Director Charles Poekel made the film based on his own experiences as a Christmas tree salesman in Brooklyn, and Audley spent the 2014 season alternately shooting scenes and actually selling Christmas trees on the New York streets. Shot on actual 16mm film, the photography helps imbue the story with a sense of pathos and beauty. 

Laura Jean Hocking’s ‘Andromeda and the Sea Monster’

The Experimental and Animation shorts block is consistently one of the best programs at Indie Memphis, or any other festival. This year’s block includes a pair of short works by Laura Jean Hocking (full disclosure: I’m married to her). In “Double Feature”, she and Ben Siler shared a common pool of footage but edited two very different takes on the material. The second one, “Andromeda and the Sea Monster”, is an experimental animation piece that claims to be the credits to a feature that never materializes. But with credits such as “Fiji Vulcanologist” and “Technological Futurist”, you’ll wish you see the nonexistent full length. 
 

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Indie Memphis 2015 Day 5: Indian Rhythms and Memphis Blues

Indie Memphis’ Saturday is packed with goodness, including strong entries from Memphis filmmakers.

Rhythms Of The Baul

Anupam Lahiri is an Indian-American director who has been active in Indie Memphis circles for several years. His new film “Rhythms Of The Baul” is the highlight of the 10:30 Culture Documentaries block. Lahiri traveled to India to trace the culture and music of the ancient ethno-religious group whose music is unlike anything you’ve ever heard before. The immaculately edited doc is a taste of a longer work to come, and features a whirlwind of great musical moments. As singer Bonnie Chakraborty says, “It should not be read as a musical form. It is a way of life,”

Grace Zabriske and Amy LaVere in Only Child

Another Memphis film veteran, Brian Pera, figures into two features today. The first is Only Child, the director’s sequel to Women’s Picture, in which he takes up the story of Loretta, the delusional hotel maid played by the Memphis Flyer’s 2015 Best Singer Amy LaVere. Twin Peaks’ Grace Zabriskie plays opposite LaVere as Delores, who is desperately searching for the mysterious beauty. Also in the cast is Lindsay Roberts as Lana, who strikes up a curiously co-dependent relationship with Loretta.

Pera also appears in and will present The Cult Of JT LeRoy, Marjorie Sturm’s documentary about a popular writer whose bestselling memoir turned out to be full of holes, and the online sleuths who broke the story.

Feral

The other big Memphis event at the festival is Morgan Jon Fox’s Feral, the Memphis director’s brilliant web series about growing up and hooking up in Memphis. You can read my August cover story about Feral here.

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Outflix 2015

This is how Outflix director Jeffrey Harwood sums up the need for the annual LGBT festival: “We want to see positive depictions of ourselves on the screen.”

The GLAAD Studio Responsibility Index reported that 82.5 percent of films released in 2014 had no recognizable LGBT characters. Even when they did appear in films, the depiction was usually not positive. “The LGBT character was the butt of the joke, and not in a good way,” Harwood says. “So it’s important for our community to see these positive representations. But outside of the community, it’s a chance for us to educate our allies and friends, and even those who don’t know about the festival, but say ‘There’s an interesting movie. I’ll go see it!'”

This year’s lineup is chosen from an entry field that included 149 narrative features, 70 documentaries, and 426 shorts. “We had around 20 people who were screening films for us. Without them, we would not be having a festival. It’s a very large investment of time,” Harwood says. “There are a lot of good ones that didn’t get into the festival, because we just didn’t have enough slots.”

Programming the festival means finding good movies for everyone. “We have to be sure all aspects of our community are covered, the L, the G, the B, and the T,” Harwood says.

Unique Offerings

This year’s festival includes offerings from Australia, Canada, Argentina, Venezuela, Mexico, Belgium, United Kingdom, and India, as well as films from all over the United States. The selections also include genres new to Outflix. Cut Snake (Sun. Sept. 13th, 7:30 p.m.), directed by Tony Ayres, is a noir thriller with a bisexual love triangle that debuted at the Melbourne International Film Festival. “We’ve never had a movie like this before, which is a crime thriller,” Harwood says. “It’s very good, very gritty.”

Margarita With A Straw

Closing night film Margarita With A Straw (Thursday, Sept. 17th, 8:30 p.m.) is also a different sort of film for Outflix. “The last few years, we’ve managed to have a film about developmentally challenged individuals,” Harwood says.

The Indian film, directed by Shonali Bose, centers on the struggles of Laila (Kalki Koechlin), a college student with cerebral palsy trying to make it in New York.

Trans-Pacific Partnership

The festival opens with Baby Steps, written and directed by Barney Cheng, a veteran character actor turned filmmaker. It is a joint Taiwan/American production helmed by Li-Kong Hsu, the producer behind Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Cheng stars as Danny, a Chinese/American man living in Los Angeles. He and his partner Tate (Michael Adam Hamilton) have a happy life, but his very traditional Chinese mother, Mrs. Lee, played by Gua Ah Leh, is pressuring Danny to give her a grandchild. She loves her son, but is in deep denial about his sexuality. When she comes to the United States to visit Danny, he reveals that he and Tate have decided to have a baby with a surrogate mother.

Baby Steps

“It’s extremely timely, talking about parenting and family,” Harwood says. “Now that marriage equality is the law of the land, people are looking toward parenting. That’s one of the next steps that the LBGT community is going to be facing.”

Mrs. Lee is torn between her desire for a grandchild and her concepts of what a family should look like. She has a tendency to run off the girlfriends of Danny’s heterosexual brother who lives close to her in Taiwan, but faced with the very real opportunity to choose the genetics of her grandchild on an online matching service for surrogate mothers, she gets squeamish.

Ah Leh’s well-modulated performance as a mother trying to adapt to new circumstances is the heart of the film. “She’s very well-known in Taiwan, but unknown here,” Harwood says. “[Baby Steps] is not just focused on the two gentlemen wanting to have a baby, but the main focus of the movie is on her. It’s her struggle to come to terms with her son and his homosexuality, and his choice of how to live his life and have a family, and how does she fit into that?”

The globe-trotting film is classified as a drama, but it has a light touch and is not afraid to make comic hay out of situations like trying to get a cryogenic container of frozen embryos onto a plane in carry-on luggage, which leads to the should-be immortal line “I’m not having our baby FedExed!”

Reality and Hyper-Reality

The documentary slate ranges from the raw and personal to the ideal and heroic.

In The Turn (Saturday, Sept. 12th, 6:30 p.m.), directed by Erica Tremblay, is a story of hope and suffering. “It’s about Crystal, a 10-year-old transgender girl from Canada,” Harwood says. “Since she’s transitioned, she’s not able to play sports any more, she’s rejected by peers and teachers, and at one point, she was thrown into a dumpster. Her mother helps her find a place to celebrate her identity with the queer roller derby league called the Vagine Regime.”

In The Turn

In the derby, Crystal finds acceptance for the first time in her life, proving that the league’s diverse skaters see their sport as more than just a hobby, but a strong, accepting community.

Wonder Women! The Untold Story of American Superheroines (Sunday, Sept. 12th, 3:30 p.m.) is a compelling, fast-paced trip through 85 years of pop-culture history. “This one is also a bit different for us,” Harwood says. “While there are LGBT people in the movie, it’s not particularly focused on LBGT themes. It is focused on themes that are important to our community, like feminism and how women are portrayed in the media. It’s important to all of our community, because in the struggle for equality, we all face the same obstacles.”

Director Kristy Guevara-Flanigan starts with the origin of the Amazon myth in ancient Greece. When former psychologist and inventor of the lie detector William Moulton Marston was hired to create a female superhero during World War II, he took the stories of the “ruthlessly violent” matriarchal warrior society and created Wonder Woman, a protector of women and implacable enemy of fascism and sexism.

Wonder Woman would become an international icon of female empowerment. As one comics scholar in the film says, “Women of the 1940s comics were always getting tied up so they could get rescued. But Wonder Woman rescued herself!”

Buried in obscurity after the 1950s anti-comics hysteria caused by the book Seduction of the Innocent, she appeared on the cover of Gloria Steinem’s first Ms. magazine and became the valkyrie of the geek world when Lynda Carter portrayed her on television from 1975 to 1979.

The film is fun, informative, and inspiring, tracing Wonder Woman’s influence on subsequent women protagonists in film, TV, and comics as it bemoans the industry’s stubborn reluctance to put women front and center in action, adventure, and sci-fi roles, even in the face of evidence that audiences want to see them. “It shows that you can have a strong female character in a lead role, and it’s not just about her sexuality and femininity. But we’re not seeing those kinds of portrayals,” says Harwood, who invites everyone to come to the screening dressed as their favorite comic-book character for a cosplay fashion show preceding the film.

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On Location: Memphis 2015

For the 16th year since beginning life as the Memphis International Film Festival, On Location: Memphis will be bringing films to the Mid-South. “We’re all volunteers, from the president on down,” says Public Relations Director Dan Hodgdon, who has been working with the festival for three years. “I’ve met a lot of cool filmmakers and musicians and seen all kinds of projects that you might not ever know about otherwise, from short films to documentaries to feature films. It’s been really interesting to meet such a broad cross section of really talented and creative people.”

Introducing the filmmakers to their audiences, and vice versa, is a big part of the On Location experience. “We aren’t officially having an opening night movie this year. Instead, we’re having a mix-and-mingle preview party at the Hard Rock Cafe. There will be a lot of trailers and filmmakers there, and an opportunity for people to get to know each other,” Hodgdon says.

Music from all over the world plays a big part in this year’s festival. “Over the years, we’ve received a lot of entries for music-related films, whether features or documentaries or shorts,” Hodgdon says. “A lot of it comes from Memphis having the history and reputation as a music city. It’s across the board, from hip-hop to country, blues … a little bit of everything. We decided to embrace the music component.”

Most of the music-related films will be screening at Cooper Walker Place, the community center located at 1015 S. Cooper in the former Galloway United Methodist Church. In 1954, the church was the location of Johnny Cash’s first live performance with the Tennessee Two. On Saturday, Joanne Cash, Johnny’s youngest sister, will be on hand for the screening of her documentary I Do Believe. “It’s a narrative of her life, from growing up in Arkansas to living here in Memphis and then being involved in the Cowboy Church in Nashville,” Hodgdon says.

Next on Sunday, a different kind of music documentary will screen at Cooper Walker Place. The Record Man tells the story of independent music mogul, Henry Stone, whose TK Records was the home of some of the best disco hitmakers of the 1970s, including KC and the Sunshine Band and Memphian Anita Ward, who had a No. 1 hit on the label in 1979 with “Ring My Bell.” Ward will be on hand for the screening.

The weekend of music-related films at will kick off with the Blues Reel Review concert on Friday, which will feature Memphis artists such as Redd Velvet, Garry Burnside, and Beverly Davis, Butch Mudbone, Joyce Henderson, and Cash McCall paying tribute to a pair of legends we lost this year, Teenie Hodges and B.B. King.

Over at Studio on the Square, first-time director Morreco Coleman will spotlight a uniquely Memphis musical phenomenon with Gangsta Walking the Movie. “He’s a former firefighter,” Hodgdon says. “It’s about Memphis hip-hop and dance culture. It’s been very influential, but it doesn’t get as much attention as it deserves, compared to the Bronx or the West Coast scene.”

The film features appearances by more than 30 Memphis hip-hop artists and dancers, including Juicy J, Gangsta Boo, 8Ball, and MJG. “I have been working for years on this documentary,” Coleman says. “It’s a collaborative project about the hip-hop, rap, and dance culture in Memphis, which has been underground for over 20 years.  Now you get to witness our secrets.” 

Another Memphis production will screen on Sunday.Waffle Street is directors Ian and Eshom Nelms’ adaptation of a 2010 memoir by financier James Adams, who took a job at a popular 24-hour breakfast restaurant after being laid off from his Wall Street job. James Lafferty stars as Adams alongside Danny Glover as “the best short-order cook in town.”

Actor-turned-director Tommy Ford will bring his drama Switching Lanes to Studio on the Square. Ford’s film follows Kaneesha and Sarah, who reach across racial barriers in their small Southern town to forge an unlikely friendship.

You can find a full schedule of the weekend’s films and buy weekend passes or tickets to individual movies at the On Location: Memphis website, onlocationmemphis.org.

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They Wuz Robbed! The 2015 Oscar Nominees Revealed

It’s time for the annual ritual of complaining about the Oscar nominations, and I’m here to help. Or at least, throw fuel on the fire.

The Grand Budapest Hotel

2014 was a great year for movies. The two frontrunners, Birdman and Boyhood, both of which have nine nominations, are great movies, but to my mind, the Best Picture category is wide open. The Grand Budapest Hotel and Selma are both equal to the two frontrunners, and since Clint Eastwood has been an increasingly inexplicable perineal Oscar favorite in the twenty-first century, American Sniper could be a surprise winner. If you held a gun to my head, I would probably go with The Grand Budapest Hotel as best picture from the choices given, but I would be happy with any of the top four.

[jump]

Boyhood

To me, the Best Director category is clear: Richard Linklater’s Boyhood is an unprecedented directorial achievement. Movies can be derailed by tiny choices early in the production, and since Linklater’s Boyhood shoot stretched over 12 years, he had plenty of opportunity to mess up, but turned instead a perfect movie. The biggest omission from the Best Director category is Ava DuVernay for Selma, which is just inexcusable, especially when Bennett Miller is nominated for the mediocre morass that is Foxcatcher.

Eddie Redmayne as Stephen Hawking in The Theory Of Everything

The Best Actor category also has two inexcusable snubs: First is John Lithgow’s career high performance in Ira Sach’s Love Is Strange. I think Love Is Strange should have been in the running for all of the top-line awards, but Lithgow, Alfred Molina, and Marissa Tormei’s performances in the film were simply unequalled this year. The second, and perhaps more glaring, snub is David Oyelowo, who is exceptional in a really difficult role as Martin Luther King, Jr. in Selma. Steve Carrel’s name recognition got him a nomination, but his performance in Foxcatcher is a one-note disappointment. Among the nominees, I’ll take Eddie Remayne’s perfectly calibrated, physically demanding turn as Stephen Hawking in The Theory Of Everything.

Reese Witherspoon in Wild

Without Tormei in the Leading Actress category, it’s going to come down to between Reese Witherspoon in Wild and Rosamund Pike in Gone Girl. Both are fine performances, but I’ll have to go with the empathetic naturalism of Witherspoon.

Michael Keaton and Ed Norton in Birdman

My knee-jerk pick in the Actor in a Supporting Role is Ethan Hawke in Boyhood, but all of the nominees seem strong. Mark Ruffalo was the best thing about Foxcatcher, and if you watched the trailers for Whiplash, J.K. Simmons seemed like the lead actor, so he’s got a good shot. And don’t count out Ed Norton if a Birdman wave builds.

Patricia Arquette in Boyhood

Suporting Actress, however, should be a runaway for Patricia Arquette, who lays it all out there in Boyhood. Emma Stone greatly exceeded my expectations for her in Birdman, but this is Arquette’s trophy.

Inherent Vice

The screenplay categories are also pretty clear for me. Original Screenplay should go to The Grand Budapest Hotel, which is as tight and original piece of screenwriting as Wes Anderson has ever done. My Adapted Screenplay pick is Inherent Vice for pulling off the seemingly impossible task of adapting Thomas Pynchon’s prose. But it probably won’t win, because it has divided audiences so much, so this category is wide open. I wouldn’t be surprised if American Sniper got it, because the book it was based on has been extremely popular. I was surprised that Gone Girl didn’t get nominated, but the category is admittedly pretty stacked.

Guardians Of The Galaxy

I was stunned to see The Lego Movie snubbed in the Animated Feature category, but directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller should console themselves by rolling around in their giant piles of money. In the Editing category, Boyhood is the clear winner for the effortlessly clear and inventive way it strung together 12 years of one boy’s life. The visual effects category, however, is wide open. My pick is the photorealistic Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes, but Guardians of the Galaxy and Interstellar are both very strong contenders, and Magneto lifting RFK Stadium with his mind in X-Men: Days Of Future Past is among the year’s indelible images.

In sum, the Oscars have given us lots of stuff to argue about this year—which is pretty much their function, right?