Shannon Walton in Sweet Knives video for ‘I Don’t Wanna Die’
You’re going to be hard pressed to see everything great on Indie Memphis Sunday, so some triage is in order. We’re here to help.
First thing in the morning is the Hometowner Rising Filmmaker Shorts bloc (11:00 a.m., Ballet Memphis), where you can see the latest in new Memphis talent, including “Ritual” by Juliet Mace and Maddie Dean, which features perhaps the most brutal audition process ever.
Indie Memphis Day 5: High Art, Music Videos, and Penny Hardaway
The retrospective of producer/director Sara Driver’s work continues with her new documentary Boom For Real: The Late Teenage Years of Jean-Micheal Basquiat (1:30 p.m., Studio on the Square). Driver was there in the early 80s when Basquiat was a rising star in the New York art scene, and she’s produced this look at the kid on his way to becoming a legend.
Indie Memphis Day 5: High Art, Music Videos, and Penny Hardaway (2)
The companion piece to Driver’s latest is Downtown 81 (4:00 p.m., Hattiloo Theatre). Edo Bertoglio’s documentary gives a real-time look at the art and music scene built from the ashes of 70s New York that would go on to conquer the world. Look for a cameo from Memphis punk legend Tav Falco.
Indie Memphis Day 5: High Art, Music Videos, and Penny Hardaway (4)
You can see another Memphis legend in action in William Friedkin’s 1994 Blue Chips (4:00 p.m., Studio on the Square). Penny Hardaway, then a star recruit for the Memphis Tigers, appears as a star recruit for volatile college basketball coach Pete Bell, played by Nick Nolte. It’s the current University of Memphis Tigers basketball coach’s only big screen appearance to date, until someone makes a documentary about this hometown hero’s eventful life.
Indie Memphis Day 5: High Art, Music Videos, and Penny Hardaway (5)
The Ballet Memphis venue hosts two selections of Memphis filmmakers screening out of the competition at 1:50 and 7:00 p.m., continuing the unprecedentedly awesome run of Hometowner shorts this year. There are a lot of gems to be found here, such as Clint Till’s nursing home comedy “Hangry” and Garrett Atkinson and Dalton Sides’ “Interview With A Dead Man.” To give you a taste of the good stuff, here’s Munirah Safiyah Jones’ instant classic viral hit “Fuckboy Defense 101.”
Indie Memphis Day 5: High Art, Music Videos, and Penny Hardaway (3)
At 9:00 p.m., the festivities move over to Black Lodge in Crosstown for the Music Video Party. 44 music videos from all over the world will be featured on the Lodge’s three screens, including works by Memphis groups KadyRoxz, A Weirdo From Memphis, Al Kapone, Nick Black, Uriah Mitchell, Louise Page, Joe Restivo, Jana Jana, Javi, NOTS, Mark Edgar Stuart, Jeff Hulett, Stephen Chopek, and Impala. Director and editor Laura Jean Hocking has the most videos in the festival this year, with works for John Kilzer, Bruce Newman, and this one for Sweet Knives.
Indie Memphis Day 5: High Art, Music Videos, and Penny Hardaway (6)
If experimental horror and sci fi is more your speed, check out the Hometowner After Dark Shorts (9:30 p.m., Playhouse on the Square), which features Isaac M. Erickson’s paranoid thriller “Home Video 1997.”
Indie Memphis Day 5: High Art, Music Videos, and Penny Hardaway (7)
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.
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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.
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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.
Note: Flyer reviewer Addison Engelking gets the summers off from work as a schoolteacher. He tends to watch 80-100 films during his annual time off, so this season he’s writing a movie diary encapsulating whatever it is that he watches in his spare time — old, new, foreign, domestic. Follow along weekly at the Sing All Kinds entertainment blog. — Greg Akers
The French Connection
The French Connection (1971; dir. William Friedkin) — I rewatched this dirty, rabid little cop movie in 35mm at a revival theater recently, and its reckless, galloping forward motion shocked me. So did its conception of New York City as a bombed-out, blocks-long oil drum fire where there’s probably a glassine envelope of heroin in your Christmas stocking, but you better watch out ‘cuz Santa Claus is a racist undercover cop. Gene Hackman’s brutish narco detective Popeye Doyle is a roughed-up charismatic whose mashed-in face rhymes with his mashed-in porkpie hat. The subway-train car chase is the most famous stretch of filmmaking here, and yes, it’s great. But I’ve always been partial to Hackman’s street-level horseplay with vacationing European drug kingpin Fernando Rey. There is a long flirtation between flatfoot and crook that’s heavy on hand-rubbing, foot-stamping, phony window-shopping, and bad takeout food. And insomnia, lots and lots of insomnia — what young John says about Robert Mitchum’s homicidal preacher in Night of the Hunter applies to Doyle sitting and smoldering in his unmarked squad car: “Don’t he never sleep?” The finale inside a suppurating abandoned warehouse is a dead end as dark as Chinatown. Grade:A+
The French Connection II (1975; dir. John Frankenheimer) — Did you even know there was a sequel? If you didn’t, you’re kind of right to wish it didn’t exist. It’s best looked at as Gene Hackman’s action-hero franchise audition, which he fails with integrity. Popeye Doyle is presented here as a no-nonsense, fashionable cop-movie axiom — there’s a heroic hat fetish in this movie that predates Raiders of the Lost Ark by six years — but the contempt with which Hackman spits out catchphrases like “Pick your feet in Poughkeepsie” or “Frog One” is more enjoyable and weird than any attempted bronzing of his personal accoutrements. The European location is seedy, maybe too seedy; they must have trucked in garbage from Manhattan to litter the streets of Marseille. The most memorable stretch of the film is a lowdown drug-addiction passage consistent with Frankenheimer’s interest in human transformations (see also: The Manchurian Candidate, Seconds). Doyle is captured, cuffed to a hotel bed, and forcibly injected with heroin until he’s a vacant, scab-armed mess begging for another hit. While he’s there, an old English lady visits him and steals his wristwatch. Where could anybody go from there? Grade:B
Rififi (1955; dir. Jules Dassin) — The blacklisted American director of Thieves’ Highway (my favorite produce-themed film noir) finally overcame cold feet from European producers and interference from the U.S. government and got back into the movie game with this precise, pissed-off heist epic. Every character in it is perennially leaning down to whisper something serious and important to someone else, a motif that culminates, during the famous 33-minute break-in at the film’s center, in a great overhead shot of pressed-together heads around a hole in the floor. That sequence, which relies on minimal lighting and incidental sounds (piano notes, suppressed coughs, the spray of wax), is one of the most influential stretches of filmmaking I can think of; dozens of caper films owe everything to Dassin’s mixture of craftsmanship, suspense, and sweat. One of those countless great movies I finally got around to see, and three cheers for its canny use of off-screen violence, too. Grade:A+
Dylan Dog
Dylan Dog: Dead of Night (2010; dir. Kevin Munroe) — Some movies seem to know so much about how a city looks and feels that their visions coat your impressions of them whether you want them to or not. Others don’t. Which is why it’s such a dumb kick sometimes to experience movies whose vision of a city is so confidently and thoroughly absurd. Dylan Dog insists that vampire and werewolf clans run New Orleans and that its late-night bars and businesses are run by zombies who organize support groups to help the newly undead adjust to their new “lives.” Brandon Routh, a more handsome, less in-on-it (or is he more in on it?) Bruce Campbell-type, stars in and provides the solemnly comic-book voice-overs for this muggy, entertaining Buffy episode. Too bad it ends like every other action movie ever. Grade:B+
One Hour With You
One Hour With You (1932; dir. Ernst Lubitsch) — For a long time, the only Lubitsch I’d seen was The Shop Around the Corner, a delicate James Stewart/Margaret Sullavan romance from 1940. But the more I see of Lubitsch’s work, and the more I try to figure out what everyone means by the “Lubitsch touch,” the less interesting Shop seems. The series of musicals he directed in the late 1920s and early 1930s are so worthwhile because they luxuriate in a suave amorality best expressed through Maurice Chevalier’s bashful grin whenever someone busts him for cheating on his lady. (If you’ve never seen young Chevalier, picture former Steelers coach and current CBS football analyst Bill Cowher with a Pepé Le Pew accent and a tendency to burst into song.) One Hour With You, a silly soufflé about two marrieds who play around behind each other’s backs, overcomes the fixed-camera limitations of early sound cinema by providing tart, innuendo-filled dialogue — some of which is rhymed! — and keeping a discreet distance from its players. After some potentially final revelations that would topple a more serious-minded endeavor, the movie ends with a stylish shrug, as if the whole idea of fidelity is secondary to the satisfying of one’s baser appetites. It’s a fix-your-lipstick-before-the-firing-squad-shoots-you existential attitude that’s pretty much nonexistent in movies these days. Too bad. Grade:A
