Censor wasn’t as widely seen, which is what I think Crumb is alluding to. From my Letterboxd circle, the negative reacting to Talk to Me seem a lot more vicious than the ones to Censor.

crumbsroom wrote:

The reviews I read on Letterboxd was a bunch of ho-hum, didn't we do this in Berberian.

Yeah, why should we need more movies like Berberian? 

Rock wrote:

You guys seen Eddington yet?

I haven't been able to find a copy.....

I’ll need to get to Materialists at some point. Reactions have been all over the place. No way it’ll be boring.

Since the positives here clearly outweigh any negatives, it should suffice to say that Sly Stone is such an irresistibly talented and charismatic individual that any documentary effort becomes practically idiot-proof, instantly compelling and fascinating, especially as long as it focuses on vintage interviews, photographs and performances.  This pretty much justifies the entire rating.

Questlove isn't an idiot, per se, but he's not a particularly good documentarian.  Among the undeniable negatives, this film follows along the currently fashionable style of documentary which focuses more on marketing Sly Stone to an audience which, this documentary clearly presumes, has apparently never heard of who Sly Stone is.  And, to be fair, as an introduction, for any of these poor souls, this film is more than adequate to inspire its audience to dig a bit deeper.  Less promising is that this doc also presumes something vaguely conspiratorial about this, as in "they" don't want you to know about Sly Stone.  We saw some similar implications in some of his obituaries earlier this year, suggesting more of a concerted effort to obscure Sly's legacy.  But if we consider the possibility that, say, the youth, the "kids today" are not as familiar with Sly as his cultural significance should warrant, is that really, like, Rolling Stone's fault?  Or is that the parents' fault?  Maybe you should have been playing more Sly around the house?  I mean, whatever.  I know I was.

These kinds of documentaries focus on a certain exclusivity of accomplishment, portraying their subjects as if emerging from a vacuum, and this doc does so particularly in a way which strains credulity.  For example, as we hear about how unprecedented and subversive it was to have a racially integrated band, for some reason the name Booker & the MGs never comes up.  Now I'm not trying to start a competition here, I'm just saying.  For a film that purports to be concerned about "black genius", the doc conspicuously omits, from any cultural context, a whole lot of Sly's contemporary fellow black geniuses.  And I know, this is Sly's doc, not theirs, but it does a disservice to the entire movement, of which Sly is a leading light, to completely ignore people like James Brown, Curtis Mayfield, Nina Simone.  When this doc is so focused on presenting Sly Stone's social and aesthetic ethos as so 'out-of-the-blue' unheard of, when you say "Everyday People" was like a revelation, it might easier if you don't mention Mayfield's "People Get Ready" as complementary precursor to that because it might suggest a larger subject.. And putting Sly in context with the larger social movement, with his similarly genius peers, does nothing to diminish Sly's own singular genius.  It's not only dishonest, it's unnecessary to omit those artists who happened to be following a similar anthemic strain.  Instead, according to this documentary, if you didn't know any better, Black Radio at the time when Sly and the Family Stone showed up was confined to B&W Motown groups with suits and ties and synchronized dance steps.  This is not an accurate contrast of 1967-68 in Black American music.

Questlove's thesis of the "burden of black genius" is not successfully fleshed out here.  Quest tries to define this burden through Sly's own idiosyncratic issues, which might have more to do with drugs and legal paranoia than "genius".  Sly wasn't a genius because he was chronically late to concerts, or simply didn't show up at all some nights.  It wasn't the burden of his black genius which led his career eventually into apathy and retreat.  There are many other black geniuses of the era who did not become creatively paralyzed due to the expectations and pressures - Miles Davis, Stevie Wonder, George Clinton, Aretha Franklin, Marvin Gaye - and most of them also contended with a cocktail of drug abuse and mental illness, and yet they managed to continue to prolifically produce some of the greatest music of the 20th century.  The reason why Quest's use of "black genius" is this context is fatuous is because it allows him to ignore the actual biographical details which help explain Sly Stone's descent, and reduces it to a grievance which Sly himself refused to subscribe.  (To be fair, Sly's 2023 autobiography was released while this doc was already deep in production.)

The worst parts of the doc are probably the more ponderous asides from D'Angelo and Andre 3000, two recent artists who have made their own genius-recluse self-mythologies integral aspects of their respective brands.  Naturally they'll want to glom onto Sly to justify their own creative paralysis over the past 20-25 years as some kind of consolation, and, again, with little specific regard to the actual issues with which Sly suffered.  (In all due respect, D'Angelo is closer to Donny Hathaway anyway.)  I understand the point Quest is trying to make here with his friends.  I just don't buy it.  Or maybe there's something else that D'Angelo and Andre aren't telling us.  Quest should know, as he tried to produce with Sly back in 2006-07, but Sly was focused on "other pursuits".  (This documentary largely skips over this latter era of Sly's life, but here's an article that gives a frank glimpse into his life circa 2009-13.)

That all sounds harsh, I know.  So let me wrap it up on one of the more positive notes.  There's been this fashionable disdain for Sly and the Family Stone's breakout hit, "Dance to the Music".  People now complain that it was a purely commercial move, that it's "simple".  This doc mentions all of that, and then proceeds to present a detailed breakdown of the song, arrangement and recording, which happens to prove the opposite, and illustrates the richness and layers of the song, as well as the LP, with the extended "Dance to the Melody", "Music Lover", "Higher", "Ride The Rhythm", "Don't Burn Baby", how the whole enmeshes the motifs.  This demonstration is the real essence of Sly's genius.  But yes, let the children learn who this man was, what he aspired to represent.

8.5/10
 

We can rest assured that this film is an improvement on Snyder's glum Man of Steel.  But that's an awfully low bar, and it isn't exactly encouraging that this film rarely aims any higher than to overcorrect that mistake.  So we get some pretty wild whiplash swings.  Steel was humorless, Superman is insufferably corny.  (I don't think anyone thought the answer to Steel's relentless brooding was "maybe he needs a dog".)  Steel's Kents were paranoid Qanons, Superman's Kents are Hee Haw extras. Steel's Cavill was overly callous, Cornswet is an emotionally helpless sponge.  Cornswet still pouts about as much as Cavill, but somehows whines a whole lot more as well.  The steely-eyed stoicism of Christopher Reeve is probably a Superman that's gone for good, and replaced by more of a Superboy naive sweetness  Credit to James Gunn for the most crucial correction, showing Superman's care and concern for human life (and squirrels), and swapping Snyder's tone of selfish cynicism for a sincere earnestness.  But such overearnest, low-brow crowd-pleasing is what also makes this film so frequently embarrassing.  "Maybe that's the real punk rock."  Not quite, Clark.  (Gunn then insists on the point by adding some faux-punk pops songs on the soundtrack, like the nerd he probably is.)  I am happy to see Gunn recently assert the importance of actually having a finished screenplay in place before beginning to make a film, which has become a rare occurance in modern blockbuster Hollywood, but if this is the kind of script he's talking about, so consciously laden in glib sitcom jokes and lame pop culture references - everything carefully designed to appeal to the broadest popular audience -  then I'm not sure what difference it makes versus the tested-to-death hypermarketed movie-product that we've been accustomed to.  (The fact that MAGA actually found such a tepidly weightless film objectionable is more indicative of their own particular febrile neuroses.)

Anything good?  Well, it's colorful, cartoonish even.  The "Justice Gang" is fun enough to make you wish this was more their movie.  And Michael Ian Black has a too-brief but perfectly cast role as a Tucker Carlson type.  The bad?  I'll spare you.  The film is reamed with paper-thin caricatures and poorly-conceived dialogue.  If I had a vote, I would say that an early domestic tiff between Clark and Lois may have to be the film's absolute nadir, which is such a blunt shovel of the kind of banal cliche and stale emotion this film frequently resorts to.  And for the record, I thought David Cornswet in general was completely unimpressive.

Maybe it's all for the best.  After all, 'corny' is a lot more harmless than Snyder's pettiness.  Maybe it's even ideal that our superhero films rest on being nothing more than arrested adolescent fantasies, shared by 10 year olds and stunted 35 year olds alike.  If only Patton Oswalt and Kevin Smith can share a tear together, I guess that's better than speading fascistic Randian power porn across our multiplexes.

6/10

 

crumbsroom wrote:

In fairness to anyone who has to play Superman, who is ever going to best Christopher Reeves. Sometimes one might want to lean towards more serious or dramatic fare to point at what we can consider one of the 'greatest' performances. But goddamn if Reeves was about as good as one could even dare imagine someone to be. I don't particularly know how faithful it was to the comics, since I never read them beyond cursory looks through their pages, but regardless of this, it is what will define the role going forward forever. 

I think that part of the problem is relying on relative unknowns.  This worked well in Reeve's case, but arguably Reeve is also a better overall actor than the others.  Also, I think Reeve was 27-28, but that's also a rare quality.  With Routh and Cornswet, it's like they haven't even shed their baby fat yet.  Cornswet looks like a baby in comparison even though he's actually older (like 31).  There's so many examples like these where you can't just make these arbitrary distinctions. 

Out of all of the younger male leads, I would say that, based on what I've seen, I would have pushed for Jacob Elordi for having the best combination of looks and chops.  Maybe they did, maybe Elordi turned them down.  I dunno.  The other problem with good actors is that Superman doesn't offer the most challenging role, and also, these days moreso than in 1978, it comes with a very stringent commitment from the studio, both in terms of future schedules (limiting future acting opportunities) but also public relations.

(aka Roger's Drinking Days)

Blue haired Zoe 🔥

Julian Schnabel, who received the "Glory to the Filmmaker" award at Venice, presented this adaptation of Nick Tosches' novel which entwines stories about Dante Alighieri's 14th century struggle to complete his Divine Comedy masterpiece with a modern 21st century tale of mobsters trying to steal a unique manuscript of this masterpiece which has been somewhat miraculously found in the Vatican library.  Oscar Isaac plays both the historical Dante and a modern-day Dante expert hired to authenticate the loot.  The film takes the paradoxical approach of filming the 14th cenutry sequences in color and the 21st century narrative in B&W.

Since this is one of the only films from the Venice Festival to have been leaked (sorry), I decided to give it a look.  The parallel-narrative effect isn't entirely successful, suggesting a clunky reincarnation connection, although Isaac is tremendous in both roles, as a sunken but stubborn soul compromised by the world's corruptions.  In the 14th century, we also see Martin Scorsese playing a mystic Jewish mentor to Dante, in a series of philosophical exchanges which provide the film's most profound moments.  ("The translator is a traitor."  "You lie, and be damned to hell; tell the truth, and be crucified.")  In the modern world, John Malkovich leads the shady criminal enterprise to steal Dante's work, while Gerard Butler is a revelation as a bloated but brutal mafioso scumbag.  ("Why did I shoot the dog?  Because dogs bark.")

Unfortunately the film doesn't manage to cohere these two parts, and Dante's muse (Gal Gadot) is way too ethereal (ie, thinly written) as a Madonna archetype.  Then Jason Mamoa shows up and the film cascades into implausibly miraculous chaos.  Schnabel appears to be compensating for his prior films' lack of bullet wounds, shot by David Ayer's longtime cinematographer Roman Vasyanov.  This film is definitely better than those films, but it doesn't quite soar to Schnabel's transcendent ambitions.

8.5/10






Spike's new joint is his most pungent in several years.  Perhaps having the solid source material (McBain's King's Ransom; Kurosawa's High and Low) has helped Lee maintain a tighter focus on his themes, avoiding his most notorious liability of trying to juggle way too many balls at once and frequently losing the pitch.  (This tendency to overstuff has hindered many of his recent films like Chi-Raq and Da 5 Bloods.)  Of course, Lee would never curb his other notorious tendency, which is pedantic social commentary, but here this works well as an examination of the generational shift in black culture, using the music industry as the metric of such changes as the values towards physical media, the veneration of wealth and the glamorization of crime/criminals.  The "Yung Felon" rapper is thinly-veiled stand-in for Young Thug, whose success is fundamentally rooted in his authentic criminality.

Is Highest 2 Lowest a better film than BlacKKKlansman?  I would say so, because one of those only had Denzel's son instead.  Nothing against the Junior Washington, a fine actor, but Denzel is a true blue motion picture star, and he makes this bravado performance seem absolutely effortless.  No wonder then to say that this is Spike Lee's best film since Inside Man.  Except it might even be better than that too.

8.5/10






Sure, I chuckled.  It could have used more variety of humor though.

7/10