Music documentaries often veer into hagiography, looking back with rose coloured glasses at their subject. There are heaps of high praise in “Gordon Lightfoot: If You Could Read My Mind,” a new career retrospective from co-directors Martha Kehoe and Joan Tosoni, but right from the outset it displays an honesty rare in authorized bios.
After a few bars of his chauvinistic ’60s hit “For Lovin’ Me” Lightfoot, watching vintage footage, demands it be shut off. “That’s a very offensive song for a guy to write who was married with a couple of kids,” he says before adding, “I guess I don’t like who I am.”
It’s a startling beginning to a movie that uses his music and a series of celebrity talking heads like Steve Earle, Sarah McLachlan, Geddy Lee, Anne Murray and Alec Baldwin, who helpfully adds, “This was a guy who sang poems,” to tell the story. Traditionally Lightfoot’s enigmatic approach to his biography has left many questions unanswered in the media. That doesn’t change much here, although he seems to have allowed open access to his home and is occasionally candid in the contemporary interviews. “I regret a lot of things,” he says near the end of the film. “I caused emotional trauma in people, particularly some women, the women I was closest to. I feel very, very badly about it.”
“If You Could Read My Mind” doesn’t skip over sensitive biographical points. His relationship with Cathy Evelyn Smith, a woman he loved who was later accused of killing John Belushi and the infidelities that marred his personal life are examined, although with a light touch that respects his privacy.
Supporting the storytelling are interestingly curated images. From rare clips of his early performances on the CBC and on the stages of Yonge Street taverns and Yorkville coffee houses and archival photos of the legendary, star-studded parties he threw at his Rosedale home, to old footage of his parents and behind-the-scenes images of his acting debut in Desperado—“You’ll never win an Oscar,” said co-star Bruce Dern, “but you’re fun to work with.”—the doc offers a comprehensive visual essay of Canadiana, Gordon Lightfoot style.
Ultimately the best documentary of Lightfoot’s storied life is his work, tunes like “Sundown” and “Rainy Day People” that suggest everything he has to say is in his songs. “Your personal experience and your emotional stress,” he says, “finds its way in by way of your unconscious mind over into the mind of reality and translates itself into your lyrics. And you don’t even know that is happening.”
“A Star is Born” was originally filmed in 1937 and subsequently remade three times, most famously (until now) as a rock musical starring Barbra Streisand and Kris Kristofferson in 1976. Bradley Cooper directs and stars in the latest version, one that hits all the right notes.
Cooper plays Jackson Maine, a rock star with magnetism to spare but carrying around a guitar case overflowing with personal problems. Drug addicted and alcoholic, he’s a troubled guy who falls for Ally (Lady Gaga) after seeing her perform a tour de force version of “La Vie En Rose“ in a bar. It’s love at first sight. He’s attracted to her talent and charisma; she is wary but interested. Soon they become involved, personally and professionally. As their romance blossoms her star rises meteorically as his fades slowly into the sunset.
It’s a familiar story given oxygen by rock solid direction, music with lyrics that forwards the story and two very good, authentic performances.
Cooper, all easy charm and weathered smile, digs deep to play a good man undone by his addictions but Lady Gaga equals him. Gaga sheds the theatricality of her pop persona, creating a soulful character that mixes vulnerability and combative independence. Stripped down, she is rawer than we’ve seen her before in a performance that feels authentic and not a musician playing a musician. It helps that she and Cooper have chemistry to spare—from their mentor and student relationship to their romance—but make no mistake this is a performance that stands alone.
In addition to the romance and music “A Star is Born” has something to say about art. In a time when the arts are under siege by government cuts and pre-packaged pop culture the film emphatically reminds us, both in practice and in its themes, that artists are here to actually say something. Everything else is just product. “Music is essentially twelve notes between any octave; twelve notes and the octave repeats. It’s the same story told over and over. All any artist can offer the world is how they see those twelve notes.”
“A Star is Born” could have been product, a glitzy film with a heartthrob and a pop star in the leads but instead resonates with real feelings and heartfelt emotion.
From CTVnews.ca: “Despite being two completely different genres appealing to very different moviegoers, Lady Gaga’s fans are reportedly trashing Sony Pictures’ ‘Venom’ supervillain film online because it’s opening on the same day as the pop star’s own romantic drama ‘A Star Is Born.'” Read the whole article HERE!
The last time Barbra Streisand starred in a movie people were still unironically doing “The Macarena.” In 1996 she headlined “The Mirror Has Two Faces,” a romantic dramedy opposite Jeff Bridges. She may not be the romantic lead anymore—and I’d bet my copy of “Funny Girl” she’s never danced “The Macarena”—but “The Guilt Trip” proves she can still carry a movie.
Striesand plays Joyce, the widowed mother of Andrew (Seth Rogen), an uptight organic chemist based in California. He’s on the road flogging his new coconut and soy cleaning product—so safe you can drink it! –to distributors. On a stopover at his mom’s house in New Jersey the pair have a heart-to-heart that prompts Andrew to invite her along as he drives to San Francisco.
The name Seth Rogen brings along with it certain expectations. But the trademarked blend of heartfelt vulgarity that has served him so well in movies like “Knocked Up” and “Zach and Miri Make a Porno” is absent here. “That’s enough with the street talk,” says Joyce when Andrew curses at the dinner table, and for the most part he obeys.
So minus the vulgarity “The Guilt Trip” is left with heartfelt, but rather than a big mushy pile of sentiment, the movie expertly presents a generational odd couple comedy ripe with chemistry.
Streisand’s version of Joyce isn’t a radical departure from mother characters we’ve seen before; she has trouble using her cellphone, asks too many questions about ex-girlfriends and insists on using coupons. What sets her apart from the normal comedic mom is the sense of longing and loss she brings to certain scenes. She can deliver a funny line but also bring the emotional heft necessary to separate this from the run-of-the-mill parent comedy (i.e. her less nuanced work in the “Fokker” films.)
Rogen cedes center stage to her, handing in a restrained performance that serves as a solid surface for Streisand to bounce off. They have natural chemistry and their relationship is a nice change from the usual father-and-son set-up so often milked for comedic purposes.
Based on a semi-autobiographical screenplay from Dan Fogelman, who went on a road trip with his mom, “The Guilt Trip” has many familiar elements—and more than a few predictable story turns—but Streisand’s skill and chemistry with Rogen make it a trip worth taking.
Here’s a question. What’s Barbra Streisand’s worst movie? Or Dustin Hoffman’s? Or Robert De Niro’s? How about Harvey Keitel? It’s a trick question. Here’s a hint: It’s just one movie. Another hint? It’s a sequel and it’s in theatres right now. Enough hints. It’s “Little Fockers,” the third in a series of movies about a male nurse named Greg Focker (Ben Stiller) and his overly suspicious father-in-law (De Niro).
In this outing Greg, now moonlighting as a pharmaceutical salesman, must prove to Jack (De Niro) that he isn’t fooling around on Pam (Teri Polo) and is worthy to be the patriarch or Godfokker of the whole family.
“Little Fockers” is an interesting study in what passes for a successful comedy franchise these days. Its producers must be hoping that familiar faces and situations will equal laughs and big box office. They’re probably half right. The Focker mix likely will garner big returns at the box office, but the laughs aren’t there. Three movies in the ideas seem to have run out. Instead of the freshness of the first movie, we’re treated warmed over jokes, innuendo, a series of misunderstandings and the only enema-flirtation scene to ever appear in a Streisand movie. There is the odd laugh and a few giggle worthy scenes but they are few and far between.
It’s ram packed with big stars—even if one of them, Harvey Keitel, seems to only be there to add some heft to the marquee—but to be fair no one is doing their best work. Jessica Alba seems to be having fun playing a wild-child pharmaceutical rep but most of the other performances have a been-there-done-that feel, as if the movie was strung together from outtakes from the past Focker films. We also seem to have reached the self parody stage of De Niro’s career. Please Robert, if there is a fourth movie, no more Godfokker jokes!
“Little Fockers” is proof positive of the sequel law of diminishing returns. It might be time for these Fockers to Fock Off.
