This year marks the 10th anniversary of the Morris and Mollye Fogelman International Jewish Film Festival. The monthlong event features 10 films, ranging in genre and subject, but all with some sort of Jewish connection. “They’re not all Jewish content, but maybe they have a Jewish director or something that ties it into the Jewish community,” says Sophie Samuels, program director for cultural arts and adult services at the Memphis Jewish Community Center (JCC). “We always want to introduce different types of cultural arts to our community, so I think that this is a great way to do it.”
For the festival, the JCC has a committee of about 10 people who “takes a list from about 45 films each year — and [the films] usually come out within the past two years — and we narrow them down until we get our films.” The goal, Samuels says, is to present a variety of offerings. This year’s films range from a documentary about a porn cinema empire and the eccentric woman behind it (Queen of the Deuce), to an animated story of a family living in the shadow of the Holocaust (My Father’s Secrets). “We try to do something for everyone,” Samuels says.
This year’s festival opens on Tuesday, January 30th, at 7 p.m., with Remembering Gene Wilder, a documentary taking a close look at the life of the “performer, writer, director, and all-around mensch.” A screening of the documentary Repairing the World: Stories from the Tree of Life will follow on Sunday, February 4th, at 4 p.m., with its coverage of the community affected by violence and trauma after the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting. On February 6th, the JCC will screen the romantic drama March ’68, which takes place during Poland’s exodus of nearly 15,000 Jews due to a hostile anti-Semitic campaign, and on February 11th, festival-goers can view The Narrow Bridge, a documentary that follows four individuals, Palestinian and Israeli, who are part of an organization called Israeli Palestinian Bereaved Families, who aim to turn their personal devastation into social change.
Other screenings include the animated My Father’s Secrets on February 18th; documentaries Queen of the Deuce on February 20th, Simone: Woman of the Century on February 22nd, Hope Without Boundaries on February 25th, and Vishniac on February 27; and the Israeli musical/rom-com Our Story on February 29th.
Overall, Samuels hopes the festival brings the community — Jewish and non-Jewish — together. “I think that it’s great, especially after Covid, for people to be in a place that they feel comfortable in and to see other people and connect over these films.”
Tickets for individual films are $7, or $5 for JCC members. Series passes are $49, or $35 for JCC members. Visit jccmemphis.org for a full schedule, descriptions of all the films, and to purchase tickets.
Morris & Mollye Fogelman International Jewish Film Festival, Belz Theater at the Orgel Family Performing Arts Center, Memphis Jewish Community Center, 6560 Poplar Avenue, Tuesday, January 30-February-29, $5-$7.
Jeffrey Wright’s virtuoso
performance complements the
virtuosic writing in American Fiction.
Thelonious “Monk” Ellison (Jeffrey Wright) has a big problem in American Fiction. He’s a writer and English professor, but his latest book is not going over well with publishers. It’s long and complicated, full of mythological symbols and classical references. Not exactly a recipe for a bestseller, but he’s got an audience, and it’s enough for Monk to get by in the publish-or-perish world of academia.
That’s not enough anymore, says Monk’s agent Arthur (John Ortiz). It’s got to be bold, direct, honest, from the street. That’s what readers want from Black authors these days — realness. But the trouble is, Monk’s book is honest and from the heart. His family is all well-to-do professionals. His sister Lisa (Tracee Ellis Ross) and brother Cliff (Sterling K. Brown) are both doctors, and his retired mother Agnes (Leslie Uggams) lives on Cape Cod. His “real life” isn’t what people expect from a Black writer.
He is painfully reminded of what they do expect when Arthur suggests he attend a reading of the latest bestseller by Sintara Golden (Issa Rae), We’s Lives In Da Ghetto. The narrative is wall-to-wall Black trauma porn. The almost impenetrable dialect Sintara writes in is nothing like her reserved urbane speaking voice. It’s all a put-on by someone trying to fake authenticity by giving the predominantly white audience’s own preconceptions back to them.
Monk is jolted out of his professional bubble when Lisa dies unexpectedly from a heart attack, and he is forced to help arrange her funeral with his cokehead brother and Agnes, who is showing the first signs of Alzheimer’s. He takes a little comfort with Coraline (Erika Alexander), the lawyer who lives on the beach next to his mom.
To vent his frustrations, Monk bangs out a sloppy potboiler filled with stories of urban poverty, crime, and social dysfunction told in transparently fake street slang. He submits it to his agent as a final raised middle finger to the publishing industry. But to his surprise, Arthur loves it. When he shops My Pafology around to publishers under the name Stagg R. Leigh, a bidding war erupts. Since Monk’s terminally square appearance would undermine the “authenticity” of the product, he claims to be a gangsta on the run from the law and refuses to make public appearances. Stagg R. Leigh’s book advance is staggering — which is good because Monk needs the money to pay for his increasingly frail mother’s care.
Monk’s bitter kiss-off has become the biggest success of his career — and a publishing sensation. But Monk soon realizes that he can’t tell anybody he’s Stagg R. Leigh, or the whole bubble will burst. Even worse, isn’t he now just perpetuating and profiting from the same harmful stereotypes he was raging against in his satire? At what point does “satire” end and “realistically absurd” begin?
It’s that last question that American Fiction ultimately applies to itself. Monk gets cold feet and tries to sabotage his fictional career with increasingly outlandish pronouncements and behavior. But each escalation is met not with condemnation but rapturous applause. Writer/director Cord Jefferson, who won an Emmy for his writing on the 2019 HBO series Watchmen, adapted Percival Everett’s 2001 novel Erasure into American Fiction, which just goes to show you that the complex questions of representation and stereotyping have been knocking around long before the moral panics of the 2020s.
Jefferson keeps it balanced between the outlandish and the real by going back and forth between Monk’s personal travails — a deteriorating family life and a fraught new romance — and the increasingly outrageous, yet plausible, arc of his meteoric writing career. Then finally, like his protagonist, the movie tries to sabotage itself to see how far you’ll go along. It’s a virtuosic writing job which wouldn’t have worked without a virtuoso performance by Jeffrey Wright. American Fiction is at its funniest when it’s all too real.
New year 2024 concept, beginning of success. Text 2024 written on asphalt road and male runner preparing for the new year. Concept of challenge or career path and change.
What do you mean it’s almost January? If you’re anything like us, the encroaching new year has really seemed to have come out of left field. The churning news cycle means that we’ve had our heads down covering the arts, a mayoral race, the Tennessee legislature, and everything in between. But despite a packed 2023, there are plenty more stories on the horizon. With 2024 just around the corner, our writers take a look at what we can expect in Memphis news next year.
Breaking News
Paul Young
Paul Young taking the mayor’s seat will be the Memphis news story to watch in 2024.
Memphis hasn’t had a new mayor for eight years; hasn’t done things differently for eight years — for good or bad. So, Memphians can expect new ideas, fresh faces, and new approaches to the city’s same-old problems (but maybe some new opportunities, too).
Paul Young (Photo: Paul Young for Memphis)
Some could argue too much emphasis is put on the mayor’s office, much like the president’s office. But that office is where the city’s business is done daily, from police and fire to trash collection and paving. Yes, these ideas are later shaped by the Memphis City Council and, yes, the mayor is expected to carry out rules formed entirely by the council. But all of that is executed (executive branch, get it?) by the mayor and his team.
Young has already named a few key staffers. Tannera Gibson will be his city attorney and Penelope Huston will be head of communications, according to The Daily Memphian. Young told the Memphian, too, that he’ll keep the controversial Cerelyn Davis as chief of the Memphis Police Department.
Memphis in May
This next year could be make or break for the Memphis in May International Festival (MIM).
It ended 2023 with a whimper. The nonprofit organization posted a record loss of $3.4 million and record-low attendance for Beale Street Music Festival. Also, its longtime leader Jim Holt announced his retirement.
MIM leaders put Music Fest on hiatus for 2024. It also moved the Championship Barbecue Cooking Competition to Liberty Park.
Meanwhile Forward Momentum and the Memphis River Parks Partnership (MRPP) announced a new three-day music festival at Tom Lee Park (called River Beat) and a new barbecue contest, both in May.
It’s unknown if these new events could supplant MIM. Speculation, though, has the future of the nonprofit in question. It’ll be worth watching.
Tennessee General Assembly
State lawmakers are hard to predict.
Last year, for example, one GOP member spent countless hours persuading his colleagues to add firing squads to the list of options for the state’s death row inmates. Another wanted to add “hanging by a tree” to that list.
However, one can easily predict Republicans will seek to make life harder for the LGBTQ community. One bill paused last year, for example, would allow county clerks to deny marriage rites to anyone they choose (wink, wink).
The little-known but hard-working Tennessee Medical Marijuana Commission may approach lawmakers next year with a plan to get a state system off the ground. Dead medical cannabis bills have become too many to count over the years. But the hope is that the group’s expertise after years of study may help tip the scales.
Easy bets are also on bills that mention “abortion” or “trans.” — Toby Sells
Politics
Oddly enough, the city’s incoming chief executive, Paul Young, remains something of an unknown despite his extensive exposure (and his consistently adept campaigning) during the long and trying mayoral race that concluded in October. Nor will the aggressive ballyhoo of his preliminary activities — parade, concert, and inaugural ball, no less! — have shed much light on his intentions in office, though his inaugural address will be highly anticipated in that regard.
Major changes may be in the offing, though so far the shape of them is not obvious. Young’s announced reappointment of police director C.J. Davis at year’s end may be an indication that, in the personnel sense, anyhow, there may well be a continuum of sorts with the administration of outgoing Mayor Strickland.
C.J. Davis (Photo: Memphis Police Department)
The newly elected council, meanwhile, is expected to be measurably more progressive-minded on various issues as a result of the election than was its predecessor.
A city task force already launched — GVIP (Group Violence Intervention Program), which involves an active interchange of sorts between governmental players and gang members (“intervenors,” as they are designated) in an effort to curb violence on the streets. It will be picking up steam as the year begins.
And follow-up readings will still be required in 2024 on an initiative sponsored by outgoing Councilman Martavius Jones and passed by the council conferring lifelong healthcare benefits on council members elected since 2015, upon their having completed two terms.
(News of that move prompted an astounded Facebook post from former Councilman Shea Flinn, who served back when first responders’ benefits had to be cut and a controversial pension for city employees with 12 years’ or more service was rescinded. Said Flinn: “Do I have this correct? Because I don’t want to be gassing up a flamethrower for nothing!”)
The Shelby County Commission, having worked in tandem with Mayor Lee Harris in the past year to secure serious funding for a new Regional One Health hospital, continues to be ambitious, hoping to acquire subpoena power from the state for the county’s recently created Civilian Law Enforcement Review Committee and to proceed with the construction of a long-contemplated Mental Health, Safety, and Justice Center.
The commission is also seeking guidance from the DA’s office on the long-festering matter of removing County Clerk Wanda Halbert from office.
At the state level, almost all attention during the early legislative session will be fixed on Republican Governor Bill Lee’s decision to push for statewide application of the school-voucher program that barely squeaked through the General Assembly in 2019 as a “pilot” program for Shelby and Davidson counties. (Hamilton County was later added.) The program was finally allowed by the state Supreme Court after being nixed at lower levels on constitutional grounds. Democrats are universally opposed to its expansion, as, for the record, are the school boards in Shelby County’s seven school districts. Prospects for passage may depend on how many GOP legislators (a seriously divided group in 2019) are inclined this time to let the governor have his way.
Also on tap will be a series of bills aimed at stiffening crime/control procedures, some of which may also try to roll back recent changes in Shelby County’s bail/bond practices.
Oh, and there will be both a presidential primary vote and an election for General Sessions Court clerk in March. — Jackson Baker
Music
No sooner does yuletide appear than it’s gone again in a wink, as we turn to face a new notch on life’s yardstick. Yet even before 2024 dawns, Memphis has great music brewing on this year’s penultimate day, December 30th, from the solo seasoned jug band repertoire of David Evans (Lamplighter Lounge) to the revved-up R&B-surf-crime jazz-rock of Impala (Bar DKDC) to Louder Than Bombs’ take on The Smiths (B-Side).
Ironically, DJ Devin Steele’s Kickback show at the Hi-Tone is keeping live music on the menu with a six-piece band alongside the wheels of Steele. Down on Beale Street, bass giant Leroy “Flic” Hodges and band will be at B.B. King’s, and the Blues City Café will feature solid blues from Earl “The Pearl” Banks and Blind Mississippi Morris.
Susan Marshall (Photo: Jamie Harmon)
While New Year’s Eve seems particularly DJ-heavy this December 31st, there are still some places to ring in the new year with a live band. Perhaps the most remarkable will be when three of the city’s most moving women in music — Susan Marshall, Cyrena Wages, and Marcella Simien ringing in midnight — converge at the freshly re-energized Mollie Fontaine Lounge. A more up-close, swinging time will be found at the Beauty Shop’s meal extravaganza set to the music of Joyce Cobb. Orion Hill’s Mardi Gras Masquerade will feature Cooper Union (with Brennan Villines and Alexis Grace), and Blind Mississippi Morris will hold court again at Blues City as a gigantic disco ball rises up a 50-foot tower outside on Beale. For that Midtown live vibe, Lafayette’s Music Room’s elaborate festivities will feature the band Aquanet.
For many Memphians, the new year will begin with a look backward as a smorgasbord of bands — from Nancy Apple to Michael Graber to Oakwalker and beyond — gather at B-Side to honor the late Townes van Zandt on January 1st. The revival of the 1970 musical Company, opening at the Orpheum the next day, also honors an earlier era’s muse, but its five Tony Awards suggest that even today it “strikes like a lightning bolt” (Variety). And the historical appreciations continue: On January 14th, Crosstown Arts’ MLK Freedom Celebration will feature the Mahogany Chamber Music Series, curated by Dr. Artina McCain and spotlighting Black and other underrepresented composers and performers; and on January 20th GPAC will host jazz trumpeter, vocalist, and composer Jumaane Smith’s Louis! Louis! Louis!, blending his own compositions with those of Louis Armstrong, Louis Prima, and Louis Jordan — three giants of the last century.
Who knows, maybe reflecting on all this past greatness will teach 2024 a thing or two? — Alex Greene
Coming Attractions in 2024
2023’s dual WGA and SAG strikes disrupted production, so 2024 should be an unpredictable year at the multiplex. Studios are currently engaged in a high-stakes game of chicken with the release calendar, so don’t take any of these dates as gospel. In January, an all-star apostle team led by LaKeith Stanfield and David Oyelowo tries to horn in on the messiah game in The Book of Clarence.
February has the endlessly promoted spy caper Argylle, a Charlie Kaufman-penned animated film Orion and the Dark, the intriguing-looking Lisa Frankenstein, and Bob Marley: One Love left over from 2023, as well as Ethan Coen’s lesbian road comedy Drive-Away Dolls.
March is stacked with Denis Villeneuve’s return to Arrakis, Dune: Part Two; Jack Black voicing Kung Fu Panda 4; Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire; and Focus Features’ satire The American Society of Magical Negroes.
Monsters will collide in Godzilla x Kong.
April starts with Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire and Alex Garland’s social sci-fi epic Civil War.
May features Ryan Gosling as The Fall Guy and Marisa Abela as Amy Winehouse in Back to Black. On April 24th, we have a three-flick pile-up with Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, The Garfield Movie (animated, thank God), and Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga. ALL HAIL IMPERATOR FURIOSA!
Anya Taylor-Joy in Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga
June brings us Inside Out 2, which adds Maya Hawke as Anxiety to the Pixar classic’s cast of emotions. There’s another Bad Boys film on the schedule that nobody has bothered to title yet. Meanwhile, Kevin Costner goes too hard with punctuation with Horizon: An American Saga — Chapter One. (Chapter Two drops in August.)
In July, there’s the horror of Despicable Me 4 and Twisters, a sequel to the ’90s tornado thriller that lacked the guts to call itself Twister$. Ryan Reynolds returns as the Merc with a Mouth in Deadpool 3, the first Marvel offering of the year.
In August, Eli Roth adapts the hit game Borderlands, which, if you think about it, could actually work. James McAvoy stars in the Blumhouse screamer Speak No Evil. Don’t Breathe director Fede Álvarez directs Priscilla’s Cailee Spaeny in Alien: Romulus.
September is looking spare, but Tim Burton, Michael Keaton, and Winona Ryder are getting the band back together for Beetlejuice 2, so that could be fun.
October looks a tad more promising with Joker: Folie à Deux, a psychosexual (emphasis on the “psycho”) thriller with Joaquin Phoenix and Lady Gaga. There’s also the cheerful Smile 2, evil clown porn Terrifier 3, and a Blumhouse production of Wolf Man.
November sees a remake of The Amateur, Barry Levinson’s mob thriller Alto Knights, Ridley Scott’s Gladiator 2 with Denzel Washington, and Wicked: Part One, led by Tony Award-winner Cynthia Erivo.
Then, the year goes out strong with Lord of the Rings: War of the Rohirrim, an anime Tolkien adaptation from Kenji Kamiyama.
This time next year, we’ll be gushing over Barry Jenkins’ Mufasa: The Lion King, Robert Eggers’ boundary-pushing Nosferatu remake, and an ultra-secret Jordan Peele joint. — Chris McCoy
Memphis Sports
Here’s a one-item wish list for Memphis sports in 2024: Ja Morant videos that are exclusively basketball highlights. The city’s preeminent athlete stole headlines this year with off-the-court drama that ultimately cost him the first 25 games of the Grizzlies’ 2023-24 season. Morant’s absence was more than the roster could take, particularly with center Steven Adams sidelined for the season with a knee injury. More than 10 games under .500 in mid-December, the Grizzlies must hope the star’s return can simply get them back to break-even basketball. If that happens — and with the rim-rattling displays that have made Ja a superstar — the new year will have brought new life to the Bluff City’s flagship sports franchise.
And how about a first regular-season American Athletic Conference championship for Penny Hardaway’s Memphis Tigers? The AAC is a watered-down version of the league we knew a year ago (no more Houston, no more Cincinnati), with Florida Atlantic now the Tigers’ primary obstacle for a league crown. A controversial loss to FAU in the opening round of the NCAA tournament last March created an instant rivalry, one that will take the floor at FedExForum on February 25th. David Jones is an early candidate for AAC Player of the Year and sidekick Jahvon Quinerly gives Hardaway the best collection of new-blood talent since “transfer portal” became a thing.
Seth Henigan (Photo: Wes Hale)
With Seth Henigan returning to quarterback the Tigers for a fourth season, Memphis football should also compete for an AAC title and an 11th consecutive bowl campaign. AutoZone Park will hum with Redbirds baseball and 901 FC soccer throughout the warm-weather months, and the PGA Tour will make Memphis home when the FedEx St. Jude Championship tees off on August 15th.
But let’s hope 2024, somehow, becomes the Year of Ja in this town. The heart of Memphis sports echoes the sound of a basketball dribble. And one player speeds that heartbeat like no other. — Frank Murtaugh
Oscar Jimenez will suit up for 901 FC next season. (Photo: Courtesy USL/Louisville City FC)
Meanwhile, 901 FC can look forward to welcoming some unfamiliar opponents to the confines of AutoZone Park next season. A restructured United Soccer League means Memphis will bid adieu to the Eastern Conference and kick off its 2024 season as part of the Western Conference. That means that 22 of 901 FC’s 34-match schedule will be against Western Conference opponents, starting with a March 9th home season opener against Las Vegas Lights FC. There’s a new COO in Jay Mims, while we can expect plenty of new players to suit up before Stephen Glass leads the team out for its first game.
One thing that soccer fans will not be looking forward to, however, is a new stadium, with plans for a soccer-specific Liberty Park arena scuppered after $350 million in state dollars earmarked for sporting renovations did not include any provisions for 901 FC. — Samuel X. Cicci
I’m not convinced the special wasn’t ultimately written and directed by a sentient bag of cocaine. — Nathan Rabin The worst two hours of televisions ever. — David Hofsted
The reviews are in — and have been in since 1978 — for the Star Wars Holiday Special. It’s not good. “It’s absolutely insane,” says Chad Barton, co-owner of Black Lodge. “It is just a weird nightmare fuel.” No one in the cast seems to want to be there, Carrie Fisher admitted she was high on coke, the plot is bizarre, Bea Arthur randomly appears, the list goes on.
And yet the Black Lodge is dedicating the entire evening tonight to the special. Naturally. And it’ll be in the vein of a Rocky Horror Picture Show viewing, complete with singing, shouting, and throwing things. Again, naturally.
“I’m a huge Star Wars fan,” Barton says. “And I watched this a really long time ago and was super horrified by it, but also really intrigued by it because it’s very strange. And a lot of people don’t know about it. … It’s kind of a fun way for Star Wars fans to come together and enjoy something in a very kind of silly way. And I always thought that it was weird that there’s a lot of other things of a similar ilk that get kind of a sort of reverence and this doesn’t get that. Even George Lucas said that if he could, he would destroy every copy of this that ever existed. And we think, No, you shouldn’t destroy a copy of this because it happened and it’s insane that it actually happened. Yeah, we want to celebrate it.”
This will be the third time the Lodge screens the film. The first go-around drew about 100 people, and last year “did about the same or a little better.” “It’s a nice off-kilter holiday experience that you can have,” Barton says. “We have our own callbacks and prop bags.”
At one point in the film, the wookies take over the screen, except there are no subtitles. “You have no idea what they’re saying,” Barton says. “And so we went in and added subtitles for the wookies and kind of created a story for them, and it changes every year. So it’s not the same experience every time you come back from year to year.”
For the event, the Lodge will have Star Wars-themed dishes and cocktails. “It’s kind of a surprise. But we generally try to like work within the constraints of whatever the Star Wars universe has,” Barton says of the menu. “And then a couple of cocktails to go along with it. As we say, you’re going to need the cocktails to get through it because it’s pretty bad. You need to be drunk while you’re watching.”
The screening, which kicks off at 7 p.m., is free to attend, but donations to Lodge are welcome. Prop bags will be for sale for $5.
Eli Roth’s Thanksgiving carves up a whole lot more than just turkey.
In 2007, Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez were at the top of their game. The two directors had come up from the indie underworld at the same time in the early ’90s. Tarantino’s Kill Bill films were critical and commercial successes, and Rodriguez was doing both mainstream blockbusters with Spy Kids and cutting-edge animation with Sin City. They teamed up to make a tribute to the shameless, cheap exploitation films of the drive-in era. Grindhouse was a double feature condensed into a single movie by leaving the middle reel out of each film. Rodriguez’s contribution was Planet Terror, a hyper-violent zombie sci-fi flick starring Rose McGowan as a go-go dancer with a machine gun leg; Tarantino’s was Death Proof, a car chase movie starring Kurt Russell as a murderous stuntman driving a sinister black hot rod.
Tarantino and Rodriguez invited their film bro buddies to make trailers for movies that could never get made which ran before and between the two features. Rob Zombie did one for “Werewolf Women of the S.S.”; Edgar Wright did a hilarious voice-over riff called “Don’t.” But strangely, three of the trailers for films that “could never get made” actually ended up getting made. Rodriguez made “Machete” around legendary Mexican-American stuntman Danny Trejo, and it spawned two successful feature films. (I’m still waiting for Rodriguez to complete the trilogy with Machete in Space.) Then there was the self-explanatory Hobo with a Shotgun from Canadian filmmaker Jason Eisener, who got his slot in Grindhouse by winning a South by Southwest Film Festival contest. And now, there’s Thanksgiving by Hostel director Eli Roth.
The original trailer had to be cut down a bit to avoid the entire film being slapped with a NC-17 rating. Roth’s feature just squeaks under the bar for an R rating, but it is every bit as demented and shameless as the trailer. As the name suggests, Roth’s film is smack dab in the middle of the slasher horror tradition of Black Christmas and Halloween. Like John Carpenter, who Roth is clearly channeling here, the jump scares and arterial spray are flying cover for unsparing social satire.
Thanksgiving in Plymouth, Massachusetts, is like Halloween in Salem — the epicenter of holiday vibe. That’s why it feels so off that RightMart owner Thomas Wright (Rick Hoffman) has decided to open his big box store on Thanksgiving, while he enjoys a greeting-card-worthy Thanksgiving dinner with his family. One of the hallmarks of the grindhouse slasher pics is that almost everyone you meet is an insufferable jerk, so it’s more satisfying when they inevitably get killed. Thomas’ daughter Jessica (Nell Verlaque) is the least unsympathetically portrayed character in the film, but still, she’s the one who inadvertently starts a riot on Thanksgiving when she lets her obnoxious friends into the RightMart before it officially opens at 6 p.m.
For Roth, the FightMart riot is his Omaha Beach in Saving Private Ryan. Fully feral American consumers tear each other to pieces over discount waffle irons. The security cameras make the rioting shoppers look like rats in a maze driven crazy by some kind of perverse psychological experiment. It’s the first of a series of blistering images Roth conjures using the familiar tropes of Thanksgiving.
A year later, the Wright family business has settled a bunch of lawsuits, and Jessica and her friends are the subject of harassment on social media. Then, a new, much more threatening harasser appears, using the pilgrim name John Carver. I had never really thought of how terrifying the traditional Plymouth Rock pilgrim outfits were until Roth showed me one dismembering people with an axe. Sheriff Eric Newlon (Patrick Dempsey) asks Jessica to help find the killer before he finds them. But there is no shortage of suspects who carry grudges from the FightMart riot, so Jessica’s amateur detectives have their work cut out for them.
The ironic part of Thanksgiving is that it started as a joke about a low-budget exploitation film that was too weird to be made, and now, 16 years later, it’s become a really good low-budget exploitation film. Roth hits that elusive sweet spot between stupid and smart. It’s gross, it’s in shockingly bad taste, it indicts its audience simply by existing, and yet, you can’t look away. Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!
The Marvels is … another Marvel movie, for those looking to complete their MCU checklist.
You never want to be the last person at the party. Whether you lost track of time because you were having so much fun, or if your plan was to stick around long enough for the good drugs to come out, now it’s just you and the host, and it’s awkward. That’s what The Marvels feels like.
The best thing about the sequel to 2019’s Captain Marvel is that it’s only 105 minutes long, although it seems longer. Twice, the film pauses for flashbacks to other Marvel properties in a vain attempt to make the audience care about what’s happening onscreen. Things got pretty rough on Hala after Carol Danvers, aka Captain Marvel (Brie Larson, hair fabulous), destroyed the Supreme Intelligence, an AI which ruled the Kree Empire. Now, a new Kree leader has emerged, Dar-Benn (Zawe Ashton), who retrieves a legendary Quantum Band from deep beneath her planet, which gives her vast and narratively undefined powers. But Quantum Bands come in pairs, and the other one belongs to Kamala Khan (Iman Vellani), aka Ms. Marvel, a South Asian teenager from New Jersey who apparently had a TV show on Disney+. Kamala is a cartoonist who idolizes Captain Marvel so much she plagiarized the name, and for a brief sequence, her doodles come to life. The quaint little hand-drawn animation sequence screams, “We know you would rather be watching that cool animated Spider-Man movie.”
That’s the flaccid flavor of The Marvels, which is basically just a bunch of warmed-over bits and pieces of things you might remember enjoying in the past, stuck together with little regard for narrative coherence. When Dar-Benn tries to use her newfound power to open permanent interstellar wormholes, big enough to do things like fly a conquering starfleet or steal a planet’s worth of water, both Captain Marvel and Monica Rambeau (Teyonah Parris) are sent to investigate. Space-time shenanigans ensue that leave Kamala, Monica, and Carol switching places whenever they use their powers.
You might be thinking, “Oh, like Freaky Friday, where two people’s personalities switch bodies? It’s fun to watch two actors switch characters!” Alas, no. In this case, the quantum entangled bodies physically switch places. Instead of mining the premise for fun comedy bits, the three actors just scream and flail around a lot. The permutations are used up quickly. What if Captain Marvel, who can fly, switches places with Kamala, who can’t fly, while she’s flying? What if they switch places while they’re both fighting Kree assassins? Could the problem be solved with a training montage? (Also, that’s not how quantum entanglement works.)
Dar-Benn is using the wormholes to steal the resources her dying planet needs from places that have an emotional connection to Captain Marvel, who her people rightly call The Annihilator. That’s how we get to Aladna, the musical theater planet, where everyone communicates via song and dance. This rejected Rick and Morty gag would be remembered as a new nadir for Marvel Studios if, a few minutes later, we were not treated to a scene set to “Memory” from the Andrew Lloyd Weber musical Cats, where feline-shaped Flerken eat everyone on Nick Fury’s (Samuel L. Jackson) space station. Don’t worry, it’s for their own good.
No film epitomized Marvel’s bland corporate competence better than Captain Marvel. The MCU’s high floor/low ceiling was excusable when it felt like Kevin Feige was going somewhere with all of it. After the big payoff of Avengers: Endgame, the Marvel films have been treading water. Now, our favorites like Robert Downey Jr. and Scarlett Johansson are off counting their money, the plots are nonsense, and the shoddy CGI is showing. Find your coat and call a Lyft, this party is over.
Cailee Spaeny and Jacob Elordi as Priscilla and Elvis
One choice forced on director Sofia Coppola could have sunk her adaptation of Priscilla Presley’s Elvis and Me before it ever set sail. Sony BMG, which now owns the rights to Elvis Presley’s music, refused to cut her a deal for the use of The King’s music for the film, perhaps because they just backed Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis biopic last year. Without Elvis’ music, how can you tell the story of his relationship with his wife, whose favorite song was “Heartbreak Hotel”?
Instead, Coppola makes the lack of “Heartbreak Hotel” or “Jailhouse Rock” or the apropos “Suspicious Minds” into one of Priscilla’s greatest virtues. On stage, Elvis became a Dionysian demigod, and as mythology tells us, the gods do not play by the same rules as us puny humans. But without the songs to perform, Elvis (Jacob Elordi) is just another dude — an incredibly good-looking and charismatic dude, to be sure, but it’s easier to see the red flags when he’s no longer divine. That’s how 24-year-old Army private Elvis Presley seemed when Priscilla Beaulieu (Cailee Spaeny) met him when she was a 14-year-old high school freshman at the American high school on a military base in West Germany. It takes some convincing to get her father, an Air Force captain (Ari Cohen), to agree to let his very underage daughter spend time with the most famous sex symbol on Earth, but Elvis could be quite convincing. In the end, his conditions were that Elvis pick up and drop off Priscilla himself, and have her back by 2200 hours.
Priscilla is, naturally, starstruck, as are all the other folks who gather to party in Elvis’ off-base housing. But the Elvis she discovers behind closed doors is wounded, lonely, and missing his recently deceased mother. The romance that blooms between them is positively wholesome, and for a very good reason alluded to in one of the film’s few musical moments. At a party, Elvis plops down at the piano and tears through Jerry Lee Lewis’ “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Going On.” Shortly before E was charming ’Cilla in Germany, Jerry Lee’s musical career went into a tailspin because of his marriage to his 13-year-old cousin Myra Gale Brown. So when Elvis’ tour of duty was over, he returned to the states and started publicly dating Nancy Sinatra. When Priscilla was 17, she moved to Memphis, quietly taking up residence in Graceland. (Those who attended Immaculate Conception High School will be quite amused by its depiction in Priscilla.)
According to the only person who knows for sure, Elvis and Priscilla didn’t consummate their relationship until she was 18, and they were married. But that only makes this relationship a little less icky to contemporary eyes. Yes, Priscilla enthusiastically consented at every turn, and the 10-year age difference was culturally acceptable in the South at the time. But as Priscilla languishes in Graceland with only the office staff and cook Alberta (Olivia Barrett) to talk to, it becomes clear that Elvis sees her mostly as a possession. To the Memphis Mafia, she was little more than a PR problem. Coppola slyly outlines the tangle of relationships when Elvis gifts her a poodle, then Dee Presley (Stephanie Moore) chides her for playing with it on the lawn where the fans who gather at the gates of Graceland could see her.
This kind of elliptical storytelling is Coppola’s trademark, and she has rarely done it better than in Priscilla. In her own way, Coppola is as meticulous a director as Wes Anderson. Often, the camera lingers on the impeccable production design, while plot points float by in the little details and callbacks.
On the surface, Coppola’s languid Priscilla couldn’t be more different than Baz Luhrmann’s frenetic Elvis, but the two films share one thing in common: If you can’t tune into the director’s unique wavelength, it’s going to turn you off. From Lost in Translation to Marie Antoinette to Somewhere, Coppola keeps returning to lonely young women who see beauty in the world that others miss. In Priscilla, she has found her perfect subject.
Zaire Love’s “Etto” won Best Hometowner Narrative Short.
More than 170 films screened at the 26th Indie Memphis Film Festival, which ran from October 24 to 29, 2023. Audiences flocked to the opening night film, Raven Jackson’s mesmerizing All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt; Jeanie Finlay’s documentary Your Fat Friend; a sneak preview of Jeffrey Wright in the blistering satire American Fiction; and even Celine and Julie Go Boating, a 50-year-old, three-hour experimental film from French director Jacques Rivette. The biggest ovation this reporter witnessed was for Joann Self Selvidge and Sarah Fleming’s searing documentary Juvenile: 5 Stories, which brought the Friday night audience at Playhouse on the Square to their feet.
Memphis-based filmmakers provided many of the festival’s highlights. In the shorts categories, A.D. Smith’s masterful sci-fi short “r.e.g.g.i.N,” Mark Goshorn Jones’ “Squirrel Meets Boris,” Noah Glenn’s “Bike Lane Ends,” Martina Boothe’s “Dare,” and Janay Kelley’s “Kiss Me Softly” stood out in an extremely competitive field. Among the eight Hometowner feature films, Jessica Chaney’s I Am packed Playhouse with its empowering message for Black women overcoming anxiety. Sissy Denkova flew directly to the festival from Bulgaria, where she was promoting the theatrical release of her heartfelt comedy Scent of Linden, to present it to the Memphis immigrant community which inspired it.
At least one filmmaker made Indie Memphis history at Saturday night’s awards ceremony. Zaire Love is the first director to ever win both Best Hometowner Narrative Short (for “Etto”) and Best Hometowner Documentary Short (for “Slice”) in the same year. (In 2017, Matteo Servente won Best Documentary Short and a special MLK50 social justice award for a narrative short. Love is the first director to win Best in both categories.)
The festival jury awarded Best Narrative Feature to Mountains, director Monica Sorelle’s story of Haitian workers facing gentrification. Best Documentary Feature went to Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project, directors Joe Brewster and Michèle Stephenson’s portrait of the Tennessee-born poet. Alicia Ester’s documentary The Spirit of Memphis, which was one of two festival films with scores by IMAKEMADBEATS, won Best Hometowner Feature. The Best Departures Feature, awarded to experimental and cross-genre works, went to Sebastián Pinzón Silva and Canela Reyes’ La Bonga. The Sounds Feature award for best music-related film went to Clyde Petersen for Even Hell Has Its Heroes, a documentary about Seattle doom metal pioneers Earth.
Donna and Ally, winner of the Craig Brewer Emerging Filmmakers Award at Indie Memphis 26.
In the National Shorts category, “Benediction” by Zandashé Brown won for Narrative, “This Is Not A Sports Film” by Lily Ahree Siegel won for Documentary, “Amma Ki Katha” by Nehal Vyas won in Departures, and “Be Thyself” by Daniel Rosendale won the After Dark category, which includes horror and sci-fi. In the Music Video categories, director Jasia Ka took home the National award for “Slut” by Pollyanna, and Lawrence Shaw won the Hometowner category for “If You Feel Alone at Parties” by Blvck Hippie, led by the director’s brother Josh Shaw. The Duncan Williams Screenwriting Award went to The Feeling That the Time for Doing Something Has Passed by Joanna Arnow. The Ron Tibbett Soul of Southern Film Award, a special jury prize that dates back to Indie Memphis’ origins, went to Mississippi River Styx by Andy McMillan and Tim Grant, which also received an honorable mention from the Documentary jury. The Craig Brewer Emerging Filmmaker Award went to Donna and Ally, which was jubilantly accepted by director Connor Mahoney and the cast. Best Poster Design went to An Evening Song (For Three Voices).
Two short films you will be seeing at future Indie Memphis Film Festivals are “55 South” by Best Hometowner Feature winner Alicia Ester and “Friend Shaped” by Lo Norman, both of which were awarded $15,000 IndieGrants.
The Vision Award went to Molly Wexler, the local producer and Indie Memphis board member who stepped in to run the festival while they searched for new leadership in 2021. The Indie Award, given to Memphis film crew members who have proven themselves invaluable over many productions, went to Laura Jean Hocking, who may have also set another Indie Memphis record by editing three feature films, two music videos (one of which she also directed), and a short film that appeared in this year’s festival.
Black Barbie won the Audience Award for Best Documentary Feature at the 26th Indie Memphis Film Festival.
The Audience Awards, as determined by ballots passed out during festival screenings, were announced on November 1. Zaire Love added to her hardware haul by winning the Audience Award for Best Documentary Short with “Slice”, while A.D. Smith took home Best Narrative Short with “R.e.g.g.i.n.” The Audience Award for Best Hometowner Feature went to The First Class by Lee Hirsch; the documentary about Crosstown High screened before a sold-out audience at Crosstown Theatre. The audience chose Josh Cannon’s pastoral music video for Bailey Bigger’s “Arkansas Is Nice” as their favorite. For Poster Design, the audience voted for Juvenile: 5 Stories.
Juvenile: 5 Stories‘ Audience Award-winning poster. (Courtesy True Story Films)
In the national competition (which should really be renamed the international competition), the Audience Award for Best Narrative Feature went to Lisa Steen’s Late Bloomers. For documentary feature, Indie Memphis ticket buyers chose Black Barbie. You can read my interview with director Lagueria Davis here. The Sounds feature Audience Award went to Augusta Palmer’s The Blues Society. You can read Alex Greene’s interview with the director about this important Memphis story at this link. The Departures feature choice was The Taste of Mango by Chloe Abrahams.
In the National Shorts categories, the top vote-getters were “Hickey” by Giovanna Molina for narrative and “Please Ask For It” by Allison Waid for documentary. The Departures winner was “Prep” by Raymond Knudsen, and the music video prize went to directors Seretse Njemanze and Jehnovah Carlisle for “So Misunderstood” by Jaklyn.
Bukka White and Jimmy Crosthwait onstage at the the Overton Park Shell in The Blues Society. (Photo: Randall Lyon | courtesy of The Hogan Jazz Archive at Tulane)
I felt like it was like the zombie film that wouldn’t die.” So says Augusta Palmer, filmmaker and associate professor of communication arts at St. Francis College in Brooklyn, about her latest movie, The Blues Society, enjoying its world premiere at the Indie Memphis Film Festival this coming Sunday. But the producer/director isn’t talking about any scary on-screen content; her “zombie” comment refers to the film’s half-genesis nearly 10 years ago, and the way it insisted on being made despite Palmer’s other commitments.
She had compelling personal reasons to see it through: Her father was the late musician and writer Robert Palmer, who helped found the Memphis Country Blues Society in the mid-’60s. Her mother Mary Branton was also deeply involved in the blues festivals that the society staged at the Overton Park Shell from 1966-1969. A decade ago, Augusta Palmer saw footage from the final year of those concerts — shot by Adelphi Records owner Gene Rosenthal — and it resonated deeply with her.
“Gene played me a segment of my mom speaking at the festival when she was pregnant with me in 1969. So I was pretty much hooked, but it seemed really difficult to figure out the rights and everything, so I just sort of let it go. A few years later I thought, ‘Well, no. I am interested in this, but I want to tell the whole story, from ’66 to ’69.’”
The festivals and their backstory were rich subject matter indeed, marking a turning point in the history of Memphis and the blues, eminently worth telling in full. When Fat Possum Records bought Rosenthal’s 1969 footage and tasked directors Joe and Lisa LaMattina to edit it down to a feature-length film, Memphis ’69, there was still much left to explore. While that film drops the viewer directly into the experience of a single weekend, Palmer wanted to situate the entire four-year run of festivals within the context of the blues devotees who initiated them, a coterie of artists, musicians, and beatniks (or proto-hippies) who comprised the Memphis Country Blues Society and its supporters. “I was very interested in the whole trajectory of it,” she says.
And so the film roared back to life, lurching in fits and starts as Palmer assembled footage and interviews from sprawling and diverse sources. It helped that some of those involved were film buffs and loved shooting casual, oddball footage of themselves and their friends. Today, their LSD-fueled hijinks live on in the glorious black and white scenes that Palmer uses to set the stage for the festivals-in-the-making, though she found a little of that went a long way.
“The footage of crazy artists in Memphis was shot by an experimental filmmaker named Carl Orr who was part of John McIntire’s Beatnik Manor scene,” Palmer says. “There’s actually a ton more of that stuff. But when I was able to get some of that, at first I felt like I’d sprayed my film with patchouli and I couldn’t breathe! So I dialed it back a little bit. But that stuff really captured the spirit of the time so beautifully.”
So too does the archival footage of great Memphis blues artists that Palmer uses to establish the importance of the blues to Memphis, even as it was ignored by the city’s racist establishment. That historical context underscores why it was down to the beatnik misfits to celebrate the innovations of the Black men and women in their midst, rendered invisible by the mainstream. And, as the engrossing festival performance scenes of Furry Lewis, Bukka White, and others reveal, their exquisite artistry very much deserved celebration.
Yet Palmer also complicates the beatniks’ utopian motivations with some well-considered comments from scholars and writers like Zandria Robinson and Jamey Hatley, who insist on a more critical perspective. Robinson notes that, in presenting poor, often rural Black artists, the white festival organizers had an attitude of “let’s be friends in spite of power dynamics!” Palmer leans into that critique unflinchingly, perhaps best expressed by Furry Lewis’ white protégé, the late Zeke Johnson. “Some of it was paternalistic,” Johnson reflects, “and we didn’t even realize it at the time.”
The Blues Society screens at Playhouse on the Square on Sunday, October 29th, 3 p.m. An after-party will be held at the 1884 Lounge at 5 p.m. that day, featuring The Wilkins Sisters and Sharde Thomas and the Rising Stars Fife and Drum Band. Visit indiememphis.org for more information.
When the curtain rises on Indie Memphis 2023 at Crosstown Theater on Tuesday, October 24th, it will be into a film world in chaos. For the art of cinema, it’s the best of times. The financial success of films like Everything Everywhere All At Once, Barbie, and Oppenheimer have proven that audiences are hungry for original ideas after decades dominated by corporate blandness. For the film business, it’s the worst of times. Tensions within the increasingly consolidated industry came to a head this year with twin strikes against the studios by the Writers Guild of America (WGA) and the Screen Actors Guild (SAG/AFTRA).
Like the old saying goes, the problem with the art of film is that it’s a business, and the problem with the film business is that it’s an art. In a world where so much film discourse is devoted to the business end, Indie Memphis artistic director Miriam Bale’s job is to foreground the art. “A lot of what we do as programmers is to try to have something for everyone, but also be really selective, so that no matter what you go see, you’re gonna have a good experience,” she says. “We’ve always tried to keep those very DIY, slightly weird, funny, and bizarre films that are so important to our identity. But in the last few years, we’ve expanded to have a lot of bigger titles and more international titles — the whole art house and beyond.”
One of the highest profile films screening at this year’s festival is American Fiction (Oct. 26th, 5:30 p.m.). Jeffrey Wright stars as Monk, a frustrated novelist who tries to expose the shallow stereotypes embedded in media by writing a satirically bad book that leans heavily on tired Black tropes. But instead of exposing the publishing industry’s hypocrisy, Monk finds himself perpetuating it when the book becomes a bestseller. Cord Jefferson, who won a writing Emmy for HBO’s Watchmen, makes his directorial debut adapting Percival Everett’s novel Erasure. “A piece of art has never resonated with me so deeply,” he says.
He says Network and Hollywood Shuffle were his inspirations as he tried to set the perfect tone for this difficult material. “I don’t want this movie to feel like we’re scolding anybody,” he says. “I wanted to make sure the satire never traveled into farce. I wanted it to feel authentic to real life.”
May December
Among the other hotly anticipated films is Todd Haynes’ May December, starring Julianne Moore, Charles Melton, and Natalie Portman, whose performance is already attracting Oscar buzz. Italian filmmaker Alice Rohrwacher’s La Chimera (Oct. 28th, 5:50 p.m.) is a comedy/drama about a hapless English archeologist who falls in with a crew of unscrupulous grave robbers. “Those are two of the best films I’ve seen all year,” says Bale.
One of the festival’s goals, Bale says, is “redefining prestige. We do that with some of the new films we play, but we also do that with some of the older films we play.”
When deciding how to celebrate the 50th anniversary of hip-hop, Bale says, “I’ve noticed a lot of organizations are showing the classic documentaries on hip-hop. We wanted to find a different way to mark this important anniversary. Two just absolute bangers are Friday and Belly.”
Friday
One of the GOAT stoner comedies, F. Gary Gray’s Friday (Oct. 27th, 6:20 p.m.) launched Ice Cube’s film career. Belly (Oct. 27th, 10:30 p.m.), by music video legend Hype Williams, features Nas, DMX, and Method Man as New York gangbangers expanding their empire. “What’s interesting about those films is that they influenced indie film, but they were both by music video directors before they got big, and they’re starring rappers.”
“We’re always evolving,” says Bale. “I’m always listening to feedback. After the pandemic, we had a lot of heavy films. So this year we’ve leaned more to the comedy.”
The festival is truly redefining prestige with a tribute to the Wayans Brothers, including White Chicks (Oct. 28th, 6:10 p.m.) and Keenen Ivory Wayans’ 1988 Blaxploitation romp I’m Gonna Git You Sucka (Oct. 29th, 4:45 p.m.), which Indie Memphis executive director Kimel Fryer says is her mother’s favorite movie. “I am a huge Wayans fan,” Fryer says. “I don’t know if anyone knows that about me. I have literally seen every Wayans movie, good, bad, or ugly.”
Bale’s mother recently passed away, and in tribute to her on what would have been her birthday, the final film of the festival will be one of her favorites: Joe Versus The Volcano (Oct. 29th, 9:30 p.m.), the 1990 cult surrealist comedy starring Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan (in three roles).
It’s a perfect fit for Indie Memphis’ eclectic spirit. For 26 years, it’s been the only place in Memphis where you can see unique films like Czech director Vojtěch Jasný’s film The Cassandra Cat (Oct. 29th, 11:15 a.m.). “It’s about a cat with sunglasses, who takes off his sunglasses and literally sees people’s true colors,” says Bale. “If that doesn’t sell you, I don’t know what will.”
All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt
The opening night film has a special connection to Indie Memphis. Writer/director Raven Jackson was the recipient of Indie Memphis’ 2019 Black Filmmaker Residency for Screenwriting.
Originally from Tennessee, Jackson lived in Memphis for two months while finishing her screenplay, All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt. Academy Award-winning filmmaker and Indie Memphis alum Barry Jenkins judged the applicants that year, and once Jackson was finished, he took her under the wing of his production company Pastel. “We do a lot of things at Indie Memphis, but to watch a film go from seed to this incredible flower has been just so rewarding,” says Bale.
All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt
“The way that everything came together is really beautiful,” says Fryer, who saw the film at its Park City, Utah, premiere. “I’m at Sundance for the first time ever, and I’m a first-time executive director from Memphis. I’m completely out of my element. I walk in, I watch this film, and I felt like I was back at my grandma’s house. … I have never seen rural America portrayed as beautifully as this, especially with Black people at the helm. It brought tears to my eyes.”
The film tells the life story of Mack, a young Black woman who grows up in 1960s Mississippi. Jackson uses long, meticulously composed shots to take the viewer inside Mack’s memories of love, loss, and connection. “Some films you watch, right? But some films you experience,” says Fryer.
Jackson and her cinematographer Jomo Fray will be in attendance for opening night on Tuesday, Oct. 24th, at 6:30 p.m. Then on Wednesday, the pair will be at Playhouse on the Square for an in-depth discussion about the film and their process. “The [Terrence] Malik comparisons have come up, but really, I feel like it’s doing something different,” says Bale. “People are having such emotional responses. She made something kind of new, and I can’t think of anything more exciting than to witness the birth of it.”
Thank You Very Much
As I watched Alex Braverman’s fantastic new portrait of comedian Andy Kaufman, Thank You Very Much (Oct. 29th, 2 p.m.), the word I kept writing in my notebook was “deconstructed.” Kaufman took apart stand-up comedy, TV variety shows, professional wrestling, and even human behavior itself, and then reconstructed something new (and often disturbing) out of the pieces. It’s a tribute to Kaufman’s commitment to the bit that when he died in 1984 at age 35, many people believed it was yet another put-on. “It is a daunting, overwhelming subject matter to try to tackle,” says Braverman, who self-identifies as a Kaufman superfan. “But what could be more fun?”
Braverman managed to get unparalleled access to Kaufman’s best friend and writing partner Bob Zmuda and his girlfriend Lynn Margulies. “We were lucky enough to catch them at a time when they had spent decades having a lot of fun with the legacy, but now they really just wanted to tell the true story as best they could. … Bob in particular has access to a lot of material, some of which people are familiar with and some of which people haven’t seen before. A lot of that material’s in the movie.”
Thank You Very Much
Kaufman denied he was a comedian (he claimed to be a “song and dance man”), and many have suggested he was a performance artist. This notion is reinforced by some of the rarest film the documentary uncovered: a faked, onstage confrontation between Kaufman and Laurie Anderson. “I think they just saw in each other some sort of connection or kindred spirits,” says Braverman. “I don’t think that term ‘performance artist’ was really in his mind at the time, but he was coming from a discipline that was more about creating an experience for people and getting them to react to what he was doing, more than it was about, ‘How do I be funny?’”
Anderson and Kaufman’s bit presaged Kaufman’s obsession with professional wrestling, which would eventually land him in a ring in Memphis with Jerry Lawler. “There’s some spiritual connection between Andy and Memphis,” says Braverman, pointing out that Kaufman wowed with a dead-on Elvis impression on the first episode of Saturday Night Live. “As far as the wrestling connection goes, he was really ahead of his time, in a way, as far as understanding how we like our entertainment in this country. It’s good-versus-evil, extreme showmanship at all costs.”
I Am
“The quality of the Hometowner Features is growing every year, so the selection process gets harder,” says Bale. “The films this year are very strong, but also so diverse, with documentaries and comedies and horror.”
This year’s Indie Memphis presents eight feature-length films made in Memphis. Princeton James’ psychological thriller, Queen Rising (Oct. 26th, 9 p.m.), and George Tillman’s documentary about Club Paradise, The Birth of Soul Music (Oct. 28th, 10:30 a.m.), are screening out of competition, while six films will compete in the juried Hometowner category: Lee Hirsch’s vérité documentary about Crosstown High, The First Class (Oct. 27th, 7:30 p.m.); Jaron Lockridge’s voodoo horror, The Reaper Man (Oct. 25th, 9 p.m.); Alicia Ester’s historical essay, Spirit of Memphis (Oct. 28th, 3 p.m.); Joann Self Selvidge and Sarah Fleming’s sweeping issue doc, Juvenile: 5 Stories (Oct. 27th, 6 p.m.); Sissy Denkova’s Bulgarian immigrant comedy, Scent of Linden (Oct. 29th, 12 p.m.); and Jessica Chaney’s testimonial mental health documentary, I Am (Oct. 25th, 8:30 p.m.).
I Am
Chaney says I Am began when she was diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder just before the 2020 pandemic. Her therapy regimen caused her to “seek community for people who are going through the same thing, and understanding that you’re not alone in your feelings and what you’re experiencing. I think the worst thing for anything that you’re going through — whether it be physical, medical, mental, whatever — is to isolate yourself.”
Chaney enlisted Amanda Willoughby, her co-worker at Cloud901, as producer. Their proposal for a short film won a competitive $15,000 Indie Grant at Indie Memphis 2021. But as they shot, it became clear they had a feature length film. “We were surprised by how good every interview went,” says Chaney. “We got so much more than we anticipated, sat with every woman much longer than we anticipated.”
“Jessica was still gung-ho on this being a short, and I was like, ‘Jessica, I’m the editor. It’s all going to fall on me. We don’t have to pay anybody. We got so much stuff. Let me do this!’” says Willoughby. “It took some arm pulling, but she was like, ‘Okay, I trust you.’ And I’ve lived with that hard drive. It goes everywhere with me because I have constantly put so much work into it.”
Willoughby says collaborations with Crystal DeBerry, life coach Jacqueline Oselen, and composer Ashley K. Davis made the film stronger and reinforced one of its most important messages. “I’ll just say I learned that there are a lot more people that want to help you than you think.”
“We’re presenting these stories from these women, and it’s not all gloom and doom,” says Chaney. “There’s hope. Every last woman gives hope.”
Donna and Ally
Street-level, DIY comedies, made with little more than a camera and determination, have been a staple of Indie Memphis since the very beginning. It’s the perfect festival for the world premiere of Donna and Ally (Oct. 27th, 6 p.m.). The film follows the titular pair of best friends as they try to make their way through the Oakland, California, underworld as sex workers. Donna’s got a legendary bad temper, which is attractive to a certain kind of client. The problem is, Donna’s mean streak is the result of premenstrual dysphoria disorder, which writer/director Cousin Shy describes as “PMS on steroids,” so she’s only good as a dom for a couple of weeks a month.
Shy says the film is inspired by real life. “I spent some time growing up in the [foster care] system, and a lot of those kids were bigger than life, just really fun. They’re geniuses in their own way. I found one of the leads, Ally—her name is Qing Qi online—and she just has this bigger-than-life presence.”
Donna and Ally
Shy is a Bay Area native who has both worked for Apple and as a first responder. “I worked on an ambulance, and that actually was some inspiration for Donna and Ally,” she says.
When we first meet the pair, they run away from a Catholic foster care home to avoid being locked up on a 5150. “Regardless of where they are in life, and what they go through in their trials, they love each other, and they’re on this journey. You really don’t even see how that’s affecting them in the movie because I think it’s just their life, and they’re laser-focused on becoming somebodies and having that happy ending. So, it’s a comedy.”
Donna and Ally’s obsession with social media stardom leads them to ridiculous circumstances. “A lot of kids, especially kids from the underclass, are just like, ‘I feel like I’m somebody, but I was born a nobody, and I want to make it.’ What are the options to make it that are not the traditional routes? For some kids from the underclass, it doesn’t feel like that’s their route, going to university, going through the systems that they felt have failed them before. And so what are the alternatives? It’s social media. You see kids who are getting famous and being seen on social media. And so that was a huge part of the movie — just getting those viewers on Instagram and building an audience that can see you. You have a thousand views and you feel like you’re Beyoncé! … We wanted to take the characters very seriously, just as serious as they took themselves. We wanted it to be really raw. It’s very normal to them. There’s no shame in anything they do.”
The 26th annual Indie Memphis Film Festival runs October 24th through 29th, with films screening at Crosstown Theater, Playhouse on the Square, Circuit Playhouse, and Malco Studio on the Square. The complete schedule, passes, and tickets to individual movies are available at indiememphis.org. For continuing coverage of the festival, go to memphisflyer.com.
