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Indie Memphis Day 3: Legends, Queens, and Sorcerer

Varda by Agnes

Indie Memphis 2019 kicks into high gear on Friday with its first full day of films and events. The first screening of the day comes at 10:40 AM with the music documentary The Unicorn, director Tim Geraghty’s portrait of gay psychedelic country musician Peter Grudzien.

Indie Memphis Day 3: Legends, Queens, and Sorcerer

3:30 at Playhouse on the Square is the second annual Black Creators Forum Pitch Rally. Eight filmmakers will present their projects they want to film in Memphis on stage, and a jury will decide which one will receive the $10,000 prize, presented by Epicenter Memphis. The inaugural event was very exciting last year, and with this year’s line up of talent (which you can see over on the Indie Memphis website), it promises to be another great event.

Over at Studio on the Square at 3:40 p.m. is the final work by a giant of filmmaking. Varda by Agnes is a kind of cinematic memoir by the mother of French New Wave, Agnes Varda. It’s a look back at the director’s hugely influential career, made when she was 90 and completed shortly before her death last March. Here’s a clip:

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Part 2 of the unprecedentedly strong Hometowner Narrative Shorts competition field screens at Ballet Memphis at 6:15 p.m. “Shadow in the Room” is an impressionistic short by director Christian Walker. Based on a Memphis Dawls song, and featuring exquisite cinematography by Jared B. Callen, it stars Liz Brasher, Cody Landers, and the increasingly ubiquitous Syderek Watson, who had a standout role on this week’s Bluff City Law.

Waheed AlQawasmi produced “Shadow In The Room” and directed the next short in the bloc, “Swings.” Based on the memoir by ballerina Camilia Del, who also stars in the film, it deftly combines music from Max Richter with Del’s words and movement.

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“A Night Out” is Kevin Brooks and Abby Myers’ short film which took this year’s Memphis Film Prize. It’s a technical tour de force—done entirely in a single, 13-minute tracking shot through Molly Fontaine’s by cinematographer Andrew Trent Fleming. But it also carries an emotional punch, thanks to a bravado performance by Rosalyn R. Ross.

In “Greed” by writer/director A.D. Smith, a severely autistic man, played by G. Reed, works as a human calculator for a drug lord. But while he is dismissed by the gun-toting gangsters around him, he might not be as harmless as he seems.

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Andre Jackson’s tense and chilling “Stop” finds two men, one a cop and the other a mysterious stranger from his past, reunited by a chance encounter on the road.

STOP Teaser Trailer from Andre Jackson on Vimeo.

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Kyle Taubkin’s “Soul Man” earned big applause at the Memphis Film Prize, thanks to a heartfelt performance by Curtis C. Jackson as a washed-up Stax performer trying to come to grips with his past.

Soul Man – Teaser #1 (2019) from Kyle Taubken on Vimeo.

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Director Morgan Jon Fox, whose documentary This Is What Love In Action Looks Like is one of the best-loved films ever to screen at Indie Memphis, returns to the festival with his latest short “The One You Never Forget.” A touching story with incredible performances by two teenage actors, this film has had a killer run on the festival circuit that climaxes with this screening.

At Ballet Memphis at 9:00 p.m. is the Hometowner Documentary Short Competition bloc, featuring new work by a number of Memphis documentarians. Matthew Lee’s “9.28.18” is a wonderfully shot, verité portrait of a very eventful day in the Bluff City. Indie Memphis veteran Donald Myers returns with heartfelt memories of his grandfather, Daniel Sokolowski, and his deep connection with his hometown of Chicago in “Sundays With Gramps.” Shot in the burned-out ruins of Elvis Presley’s first house, “Return to Audubon” by director Emily Burkhead and students at the Curb Institute at Rhodes College presents an incredible performance by Susan Marshall of Elvis’ “Heartbreak Hotel. Shot in the churches of Memphis and rural Mississippi, “Soulfed” by Zaire Love will tempt your appetite with an examination of the intimate connection between religion and cuisine. “That First Breath,” a collaboration between Danielle Hurst, Madeline Quasebarth, and Kamaria Thomas, interviews Mid-South doulas and advocates for a more humane and natural childbirth experience. “How We Fall Short” by Brody Kuhar and Julie White is a six-minute dive into the Tennessee criminal justice system. “Floating Pilgrims” by David Goodman is a portrait of the vanishing culture of people who live on boats in the Wolf River Harbor. “St. Nick” is Lauren Ready’s story of a high school athlete fighting debilitating disease. “Fund Our Transit” by Synthia Hogan turns its focus on activist Justin Davis’ fight for better transportation options in Memphis. And finally, Zaire Love’s second entry, “Ponzel,” is one black woman’s search for meaning in an uncertain world.

The competition feature Jezebel (9:30 p.m., Hattiloo Theatre) by director Numa Perrier focuses on the story of a young black woman in Las Vegas who is forced to take a job as a cam girl when the death of her mother threatens to leave her homeless. The emotional heart of the film is the conflict that arises when the protagonist discovers that she kind of likes being naughty with strangers on the internet, and the dangers that arise when one of her clients gets too close.

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Outdoors in the big tent block party, the premiere musical event of the festival happens at 8:30 p.m. Unapologetic Records will celebrate the release of its new compilation album Stuntarious IV with a show featuring performances by A Weirdo From Memphis, IMAKEMADBEATS, C Major, Kid Maestro, She’Chinah, Aaron James, and Cameron Bethany. Expect surprises and, well, lots of mad beats!

Finally, at midnight, a pair of screenings of classic films—for various definitions of the word “classic”— at Studio on the Square. Queen of the Damned is Michael Rymer’s adaptation of the third novel in Anne Rice’s vampire trilogy. Pop star Aaliyah starred as vampire queen Akasha, and had just finished the film when she died in a plane crash in the Bahamas. The film has become something of a camp classic, and is probably most notable today for inspiring a ton of great Halloween costumes.

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The other screening is Exorcist director William Friedkin’s masterpiece Sorcerer. Starring Roy Scheider as an anti-hero in charge of a ragtag group of desperados trying to move a truckload of nitroglycerin through the Amazon jungle, it’s a gripping ride through human greed.

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Come back tomorrow for another daily update on Indie Memphis 2019.

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Throwback August: Jaws

The dog days of August are upon us, so at some point, you’re going to need to sit inside with your AC blasting and recover from the heat. To help supplement your binge watching, the Memphis Flyer Film/TV/Etc. Blog presents Throwback August. Each week, myself, Addison Engelking, and Eileen Townsend will each examine a film from 40, 30, 20, and 10 years ago. This week, we’ll be talking about films from 1975.

The biggest film of 1975 was also one of the most important films of all times, both from an artistic and historic point of view. When Steven Spielberg signed on to direct an adaptation of the Peter Benchley thriller about a small coastal town that lived in fear of a giant shark, he was a 26-year-old with only one feature film to his name, The Sugarland Express, starring Goldie Hawn, and scored by a little-known composer named John Williams. Once Spielberg fully analyzed the problems involved in filming the novel, he tried to back out of the deal. But producer Richard Zanuck stood firm, and the rest is history. 

Director Steven Spielberg with Bruce, the mechanical shark star of Jaws.

Jaws is widely credited with being the beginning of the summer blockbuster, and there’s some truth to that, but elements of its successful formula were already in the air by the time it hit theaters. The Godfather, for example, had also been an adaptation of a potboiler novel that opened on an unusually large amount of screens in an age where the conventional film business wisdom was to strike as few prints as possible and then tour them relentlessly.

Richard Dreyfuss, Roy Scheider, and Robert Shaw

But Jaws is not a multi-generational family saga about America. It’s a tribute to Hitchcock’s dictum that mediocre books make the best movies. Since I was all of 4 years old when Jaws came out, I had never seen it on a big screen before a recent sold-out anniversary screening at Malco Paradiso mounted by Turner Classic Movies. The unpredictability of the sea caused major problems during the filming, but the one that struck me the most was the lighting. Blown up huge, you can tell how much Spielberg used reflectors to illuminate the actor’s faces during the bright, sunlit outdoor sequences. But the occasional clunky elements exposed by the HD projection only served to underline its general awesomeness. Spielberg’s uncanny talent for framing and deep staging are already there, fully blown, such as in the scene where a drunk Chief Brody (Roy Scheider) and Matt Hooper (Richard Dreyfuss) dissect a shark looking for the body parts of a child victim. Scheider and Dreyfuss are both great as the movie’s co-leads, but it’s Robert Shaw as the fisherman Quint who steals the show with the legendary monolog about the doomed crew of the Indianapolis. The delivery of his final words, “Anyway, we delivered The Bomb,” tell all you need to know about the character so haunted by the deaths he has seen and helped cause, so when he is finally swallowed by the shark, it’s the end he knew was inevitable. And that gets to the heart of all horror films. Like all great movie monsters, the shark is just justice delayed for the secret crimes we all commit. 

Throwback August: Jaws

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The 40th anniversary of Jaws

The shark is approaching — an enormous 25-footer. We may not see it right away, but we know it’s coming, because, with only two alternating notes — E and F if you’re wondering — John Williams’ iconic score tells us that death is nipping at our heels. It begins slowly, like the pulse of a matchless predator staking out its next meal. Then a second, racing pulse is added to the mix — this is the prey. Then a third is added, the throbbing pulse of white-knuckled audience members, sitting on dry land, in the dark, watching helplessly while a killer shark wreaks bloody havoc along the coast of Amity Island, a New England resort dependent on beach tourism. Jaws was never just a horror movie.

In 1975 audiences lined up in record-breaking numbers to see an aquatic creature feature where the monster was often conspicuously absent. The “creature,” which “survived millions of years of evolution without change, without passion, and without logic,” was evoked primarily by Williams’ soundtrack and the screaming and flailing of its victims. The more immediate threats were greedy humans worried that some whistle-blower will yell “shark,” and businesses will have a panic on their hands on the Fourth of July.

Jaws was a risky proposition for Universal Studios. Producers knew the property was hot, but the creative team started out with no script, no shark, and no cast. The 27-year-old director, Steven Spielberg, had some experience with horror, having worked on episodes of TV’s Night Gallery. But his first film, Sugarland Express, had tanked at the box office. Riding the wave of an effective (and unheard of) $700,000 TV advertising campaign, this big fish story starring Roy Scheider and Richard Dreyfuss, quickly became the highest-grossing film in box-office history. Well, until Star Wars came along two years later and the battle of the age of summer blockbusters began in earnest.

On Wednesday, June 24th, Memphis audiences will have another chance to experience the original blockbuster as it was meant be experienced — on the big screen. To celebrate its 40th anniversary, Jaws is screening at 500 theaters across America. You can catch it at the Paradiso at 7 p.m. But you’re probably gonna need a bigger boat.