RIP Margot Kidder: 1948-2018, “Superman” Lois Lane was 69

margot

Margot Kidder, Lois Lane to Christopher Reeve’s Man of Steel in the most beloved film version of “Superman,” has died. She was just 69 and had been in poor health for years.

Stories of paranoia, bipolar disorder and mental illness dominated her later years. She kept working, popping up in a “Halloween” sequel here, an indie project there, right up to the end. She was on the cusp of a breakdown when her old “Superman” director gave her a life-saving bit part in “Maverick” in the early ’90s.

The Canadian-born Kidder’s heydays were the ’70s, when she was “Superman/Amityville Horror” famous and part of that whole Montana mafia of actors, singers (Jimmy Buffett) and writers, like Thomas McGuane, to whom she was briefly married.

In the “Superman” movies, she was the very embodiment of ’70s liberated woman, assertive, spunky, competitive and very much an adult. You don’t see Lois Lanes like that, and you don’t see a lot of supporting roles for women that have that much going on. Yeah, she needed rescuing. Or so Superman always thought.

lois

She played painter Georgia O’Keeffe opposite Stacy Keach’s photographer Alfred Stieglitz in a stage drama, “Flowers and Photos,” about their love affair in a 1990s play that was launched in Winston-Salem, N.C., where I then worked.

I recall her being charming, a good sport, and pretty good in the play as well. She held her own with Keach, widely regarded as one of the great stage actors of his generation and an under-rated character actor par excellence even today.

My dog kept interrupting a phone interview we had before meeting in person. Her dog barked back, and she said “Goodness, maybe we should just turn over the phone to them.”

A lifelong actress and activist (she became a U.S. citizen about a dozen years ago), she died in Livingston, Montana where she’d long made her home. She died in an assisted living home, in her sleep, according to her management.

 

 

Posted in Reviews, previews, profiles and movie news | Comments Off on RIP Margot Kidder: 1948-2018, “Superman” Lois Lane was 69

Netflixable? Music’s ties to drugs, drink and early Death is explored in “27: Gone Too Soon”

27

Here’s a British music documentary ostensibly about “The 27 Club,” that collection of famous musicians, from Brian Jones to Amy Winehouse and ever-onward, who indulged and died at the too-too young age of 27.

I say “ostensibly” because Simon Napier-Bell’s “27: Gone Too Soon” takes a stab at going much deeper into the reasons people like Kurt Cobain killed himself, and Amy Winehouse, Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin drank and drugged themselves to death.

The flippant “conspiracy” title of that “Club” is just a jumping off point for discussions of “drink, drugs and depression,” disturbed musicians in a field of music where “If you haven’t made it by 27, you’ll never make it.”

Historians, music business professionals and British rock journalists like Lesley-Ann Jones and musicians revisit the ’60s, when this “club” seemed to go public (musicians dying too young predates that decade by many decades).

“Being a pop star is a very dangerous business,” one and all agree with survivors like Gary Numan. Throw in childhood trauma, “drama” within the dynamics of a group or a music scene, press scrutiny and fragile egos with an absurdly easy access to indulgences and the growing expectations of “living the lifestyle,” it’s a wonder anybody in that line of work who achieves fame gets out alive.

“Suddenly, you’re in a bedroom on your own. What do you do?”

These are people who equally “suddenly, can afford every vice.”

The music people place the subjects of the film within music history, the milieu these fabled figures lived and died in, but mental health professionals do a better job (than the speculations of music journalists and TV presenters) in laying out the personalities and backgrounds that built self-destruction into their short life stories.

Brian Jones is remembered as a guy from whom the Rolling Stones stole his band, his style (Jagger) and vibe (Richards) and his psyche, only to drown blitzed out of his mind in the pool at the house he owned where A.A. Milne (“Winnie the Pooh”) had once lived.

Jimi Hendrix had an upbringing “that was BEYOND Dickensian,” the experts interviewed here relate. Mom was “a child having a child,” a sister was born blind, from there into the military and into seriously regimented R & B bands.

Psychologist Martin Lloyd-Elliot sees Jimi’s search for “freedom” in his music, his love life and life in general as being the secret to his genius and his undoing. He weighs in “the layer of skin missing” from so many artists, fragile souls like Janis Joplin. Dr. Cosmo Hallstrom notes the speed of Jimi’s arrival, the rapid loss of grounding from his changing circle of friends as being “his rapid undoing.”

The “Swinging London” footage is vivid and fascinating. The Deep South Janis Joplin grew up in and the heroin-dosed London of Amy Winehouse and Kurt Cobain’s marriage to the Ultimate Enabler is skipped past. But not  “the trauma that runs through” his family’s genetics. And Amy Winehouse’s relationship with her grotesque, cheating/enabling father isn’t similarly spared. Courtney Love is more litigious, right?

Janis Joplin, “tormented,” “once voted the ugliest man on campus,” was self-medicating from an early age, and clumsily overdosed, those around her have maintained.

One thing about the historical stuff, we’re reminded that “no one talked about ‘addiction,’ ‘rehab'” and these early deaths as being survivable with “intervention,” another buzz-word more popular now than way back when. “Dazed” radio and TV interviews underline her alcoholism.

I was a taken aback by old TV news footage starring the late ABC anchor Frank Reynolds, glibly leading an obituary with “The Jimi Hendrix Experience is over.”  Damn. That’s cold. Diane Sawyer’s sensitive announcement on that same network decades later when Cobain died shows an erosion of the generation gap that is encouraging.

The documentary rattles through these assorted case histories, where Kurt et al fits within music history, unhappiness and death, so briskly that it at times feels TV quick and dirty in style, almost flippant.

Amy Winehouse, whose record label went to some lengths to save, did herself in anyway, and it’s worth arguing that “There’s some investment in chaos” in this business, that people like her thrive until they don’t.

But there’s new material here, arguments and counter-narratives that in light of the recent revelations about Robin William’s physical maladies that led to his suicide, make it all a little less coincidental, a little less mysterious.

2half-star6

MPAA Rating: unrated, drug abuse, adult subject matter.

Cast: Gary Numan, Lesley Ann Jones, Paul Gambuccini, Tom Robinson, Steve Blame, Dan Gillespie Sells

Credits: Written and directed by Simon Napier-Bell. A Vision Films release.

Running time: 1:10

Posted in Reviews, previews, profiles and movie news | Comments Off on Netflixable? Music’s ties to drugs, drink and early Death is explored in “27: Gone Too Soon”

Netflixable? “Security” gives us Banderas back in action mode

banderas.jpg

Have you been watching season two of “Genius,” the National Geographic TV mini-series built on Antonio Banderas‘s superb rendition of Pablo Picasso? Yeah, he’s too tall, but the Spanish master brilliantly portrays pugnacious, egotistical and short in playing another Spanish master.

Every time I see Banderas, I wonder why Hollywood and European cinema haven’t made better use of him.

I mean, if Tarantino can resurrect the acting dead, if George Lucas had the good sense to bring Billy Dee Williams into the “Star Wars” universe, surely somebody has a great idea or three of how to use the smoldering Spanish hunk with the best growl in the movies.

B-movies like “Acts of Vengeance” and “Bullet Head” aren’t so much released as “escape,” even if they’re worth tracking down.

“Security” is the sort of film we’re seeing Banderas in too often these days, a heavyweight punching below his weight.

He plays a military vet — a retired captain — in search of a job doing “anything” after a life in the service.

“We just don’t have anything in your skill set, at the moment.”

Divorced, “my wife and my kid are two states away,” broke and driving a beater, Eduardo “Eddie” Deacon cannot get a break. Minimum wage security jobs are all that’s available to a guy who off his “psyche eval clearance” box on employment applications.

“Just an oversight, I’m sure.”

When a U.S. Marshals witness transport is attacked, you can bet your B-movie dollars tat the bad guys will end up crossing paths with ol’Eddie, his “special skills” and any problems that “psyche eval” might have revealed.

It all goes down at the mall, where Eddie’s an after-hours “mall cop,” flinching at the sound of the thunderstorm outside, trying to fit in with dorky dead-enders who share the job, ignoring the pretty Ruby (Gabriella Wright) who sleeps through the shift and collects a check — for being pretty — trying not to laugh when idiotic-hairstyle boss Vance (Liam McIntyre) waves around the taser that is their only armament.

Five man night crew for a mall? Hmmm, Eddie wonders. As do we. “A whole lotta meth” is the explanation.

And then the missing “witness,” a tweenage girl, Jamie (Katherine De La Rocha) shows up, hysterical, at their padlocked glass doors. Followed by kindly old Ben Kingsley, looking for his “daughter.”

Suspicious Eddie is not having it. And soon, the mall crew is up to its eyeballs in bribe offers and heavily armed gangsters.

“You getting rich, or every last one of you dying horribly.” Quite the choice.

Eddie makes the call, and “Your country thanks you for your service.”

Bad guys in trenchcoats flood the zone, “not in-bred mouth-breathers,” Boss Ben insists. This remote mall is about to turn into a combat zone.

Banderas2.jpg

“For now, time is our enemy,” Eddie purrs. “Let’s make time our friend.

Let’s raid mall stores and fortify this beast like a “Braveheart” castle. One improbable to impossible “escape” follows another.

The kid? She’s testy, streetwise and annoying.

“Don’t talk to me like I’m a child. One more thing, you have to promise to protect me. Pinky swear!”

Kingsley stands very still, looks very stern and bites off chewy orders to his merciless minions.

“Get it cleaned up.” “Clear the food court.” “Scorched Earth. Nobody gets out alive.”

Ruby? She wakes up.

The good guys “buy time” retreating from store to store, level to level, “hurt them, if you have the chance.”

Banderas commits to the part, as always. Eddie gets a few bad-ass moments, takes a few beatings. And yet, he persists.

Yeah, this is a little too R-rated “Mall Cop” for its own good. The mall as combat zone set up is fun, the DIY booby-traps and “bombs” have just enough “MacGuyver” about them to hold our attention. And the leads are old hands at keeping that sense of urgency in their moments even if the director doesn’t share that “We’re running out of time” tension with the rest of the shuffling along baddies.

Aside from that, “Security” is just an illogical, cheesy and bullet-riddled B-movie, even in its best moments. You can see why it merited little if any theatrical release.

What you can’t see is why Banderas, and let’s throw in Kingsley, can’t find more meaningful work than this, or better investment advisors who’d allow them to turn down a job, every now and then.

1half-star

MPAA Rating: R for violence and language

Cast: Antonio Banderas, Ben Kingsley, Katherine de la Rocha, Jiro Wang, Cung Le, Liam McIntyre, Gabriella Wright

Credits:Directed by Alain Desrochers, script by Tony Mosher. A Millenium release.

Running time: 1:31

 

 

Posted in Reviews, previews, profiles and movie news | Comments Off on Netflixable? “Security” gives us Banderas back in action mode

Next Screening, My Audience with His Holiness (“Pope Francis — A Man of His Word”)

It opens Friday, and the Pope Picture has Focus Features behind it and Wim Wenders behind the camera — who’s had a fascinating career ranging from “Wings of Desire” and “The American Friend” to U-2 concert films and too many documentaries to name here. Wildly uneven and fascinating career, I might add. But the docs of his that I’ve seen have been as a general rule, terrific.

“Pope Francis — A Man of His Word” promises to capture the pope, not in candid/private moments so much as in the persona and example he tries to set for the Catholic and non-Catholic world.

Granted, Turkish tyrant Erdogan is in it and PermaTan John Boehner.

But the Pope himself seems a modest man, compelling figure. Should be an illuminating film, maybe even uplifting.

Posted in Reviews, previews, profiles and movie news | Comments Off on Next Screening, My Audience with His Holiness (“Pope Francis — A Man of His Word”)

“Deadpool 2” reviews are coming, tonight at 11

deadpool2.jpg

Yes, there is fangirl/fanboy reaction trickling in about “Deadpool 2,” which was screened all over North America last Thursday.

Ignore their nerdgasms or criticisms just a tad longer, if you would.

Official, grownup licensed (not really) critic reviews don’t arrive until 11 tonight. That’s when the Fox/Marvel embargo ends. For those of us with licenses (sorry, not a real thing).

For perspective, though, let me play the Elder Statesman of Cinema Criticism here and point out one other time this was done.

It was the spring of 2006, kids. America and the world were reveling in the wit and clumsiness of the Bush Presidency, year five, the Tigers and the Cardinals were slowly clawing their way towards a World Series date in October.

And Sony was about to unleash “The Da Vinci Code.” But they were showing it at Cannes, too. That self-same warm May night on the Cote d’Azur.

Rather than let Cannes-heads label their film as fabulous or a flop — these folks have been known to endorse  Von Trier and “Tree of Life” tripe — Sony cleverly decided to show the film to EVERY critic at same time. The curtain would rise in Cannes, and critics from Orlando to Indianapolis, Philly to LA, DC to Atlanta, would see the credits roll at exactly the same time.

Similarly, in Greater Orlando we saw “Deadpool 2” at 430, LA saw it at 1:30, etc. this past week.

I’ve always thought that’s the way it ought to be, no favoritism for “the trades,” no Pixar sneak-peak to Time Magazine to game opinions and influence critics prone to pack mentality.

Yeah, we were all pretty much in lock step when “Da Vinci Code” came out. My review is preserved on Page 5 of the Rotten Tomatoes archive. And it still earned a fortune.

So there’s no lesson here, no learning — just a coordinated effort to level the playing field. Just the way Mr. Pool wants it.

And as it’s 11, here we go. 

 

 

Posted in Reviews, previews, profiles and movie news | Comments Off on “Deadpool 2” reviews are coming, tonight at 11

BOX OFFICE: “Avengers” win again, doc “RBG, about Ruth Bader Ginsburg, cracks the top ten

box1“Breaking In” bested “Life of the Party” in per-screen average in this weekend’s new release matchup.

“Party” had more screens, and collected $18.5 million more screens. Melissa McCarthy can still open a movie.

Will Packer’s “Breaking In” gives Gabrielle Union a piece of BO glory with a $16.5 million opening for a movie that cost maybe half that.

“Avengers: Infinity War” won the weekend with a VERY healthy $62 million, a 46% drop from last weekend. It will almost certainly lose the top spot to a Marvel/Fox release next weekend. “Deadpool 2” may be R-rated, but most of the fans of these pictures are over 18, so figure it’ll open huge and “Infinity War” will fall to $30 million or below. It’s already over $1 billion worldwide, so it’s all mad money, at this point.

Same with “Black Panther,” which will be at $700 million Thursday night, as it loses screens and exits the top ten.

“Overboard” held audience and remains ahead of “A Quiet Place,” “Tully” added screens and lost a lot of audience, “Isle of Dogs” will hit $30 million Monday, maybe Tuesday.

The big surprise, a documentary about “RBG,” a sassy Supreme Court justice, cracked the top ten with a big per-screen average.

 

Posted in Reviews, previews, profiles and movie news | Comments Off on BOX OFFICE: “Avengers” win again, doc “RBG, about Ruth Bader Ginsburg, cracks the top ten

Netflixable? Toby Jones views his Mommy issues through a twisted “Kaleidoscope”

kal1

As interesting as he inevitably is, there’s something forlorn about British character actor Toby Jones, a sense that he’s carrying on through the hopelessness of whatever dead-end life he’s portraying this time.

Short, balding, Jones gives every role the weight of the world, the sense that he’s doing his best to beat back the bitterness.

He works a lot — sci-fi and drama, British TV — and plays a lot of scientists, officious officials (“Tinker, Tailor, Soldier Spy”), assistants, gossips (Truman Capote in “Infamous”) and downtrodden fixers. Sometimes, they aren’t quite so downcast (Hollywood agent Swifty Lazar in “Frost/Nixon.”).

At least when he’s a villain, or a villain’s henchman (“Captain America: The Winter Soldier”), he gets to break out a demonic smile.

The rare occasion when he becomes a leading man puts his disappointment or efforts to avoid it front and center. Check out the melancholy myopia of the ever-so-twee TV series “detectorists,” for instance.

In “Kaleidoscope” he’s Carl, a little man in a little flat in a huge, impersonal complex living a lonely life, with only his mother’s guilt-loaded answering machine message for company. He faces that blinking “You’ve got messages” light with utter dread.

When he finally gets a woman (Sinead Matthews) up to his place for Sea Breezes (vodka, cranberry juice, grapefruit juice), he’s on his heels from the start.

“Where’s all your stuff?”

He doesn’t have much.

“Let’s look at your profile. Where’s your computer?”

“I use one at the library.”

And when the aggressively fun-seeking Abby asks if “I’m your sort,” because men tend to date their mothers (her theory), it’s nosebleed time. His.

kal2

He dashes to the bathroom, she rummages through his place. Not to rob him, but to figure him out — a prison library book here, an old-fashioned kaleidoscope there.

“You don’t drink. You don’t smoke. You don’t dance. Maybe you’d rather read a book.”

What’s her angle? Maybe she’s just drunk. His? He’s got secrets, layers of secrets.

Carl’s mood turns on a ten pence piece.

“Why are you here?”

“You look like a pushover.”

When he wakes up after blacking out, Abby is dead. What’s he done?

That sets off the ex-con’s frantic effort to clean up after the crime, curling up in a ball to see if the luggage he has on hand will hold a short woman’s body. Bits and pieces of the night, his psychological past, and that damned answering machine message interrupt the sound of…sawing.

Jones’s brother Rupert wrote and directed “Kaleidoscope,” a psychological thriller with touches of the Edgar Allen Poe story “The Cask of Amontillado” that Toby Jones filmed years ago. And maybe a hint of “Psycho.”

Because when Mummy (Anne Reid) shows up, she has an awful lot of access to his life and information about what might have just happened. He wants nothing to do with her, and her every word and action seems to implicate him and complicate the crime he apparently has committed.

She cooks, “It’s liver, your favorite,” and he’s not having it.

“You have no idea what I like.”

Mumsy, from the Isle of Wight, is all “bygones,” and unflappable in the face of Carl’s naked hatred.

“Is there no way to start again, after all this time?”

“But I haven’t had any time. All my time’s been taken away.”

Interrogations, phony alibis, a brute of a husband, an overly curious police dog — and afterwards, the third degree in velvet gloves from the hated on woman on the sofa.

There’s a built-in inevitability about “Kaleidoscope” that puts the burden on performances for this to come off, and they almost salvage a generally bland, mostly unsurprising thriller.

Reid’s toxic smile and Matthews’ working class wantonness work. But in a role no-doubt written for him, Jones downloads his entire arsenal — hurt, shyness, pain, guilt and rage — onto the screen. This is a performance that smacks of desperation and denial, a paranoid loner making it up as he goes along.

He’s better than the film, more interesting as a character than as a character watching justice close in on him.

2stars1

MPAA Rating: unrated, violence, disturbing themes

Cast: Toby Jones, Anne Reid, Sinead Matthews, Deborah Findlay

Credits: Written and directed by Rupert Jones. An IFC release.

Running time: 1:39

Posted in Reviews, previews, profiles and movie news | Comments Off on Netflixable? Toby Jones views his Mommy issues through a twisted “Kaleidoscope”

Preview, an “Incredibles 2” Mother’s Day Card

Eye popping action, and a celebration of “Mom.” June 15.

Posted in Reviews, previews, profiles and movie news | Comments Off on Preview, an “Incredibles 2” Mother’s Day Card

Netflixable? John Woo in winter still brings epic fights, in “ManHunt”

man1

The faithful know what’s coming.

Epic shootouts, sword-fighting set-pieces, the old “ultra violence,” ballets with bullets, Sam Peckinpah slo-mo for “the cool bits,” sacrifice, a little opera, a little jazz, tough guys acting tough to each other, tender to the womenfolk, always hoping for “A Better Tomorrow.”

And doves. White doves. A little Christian symbolism in the middle of the mayhem.

The great Hong Kong action director John Woo hasn’t seemed as active in recent years, turning out period epics intended for the Chinese market (“Red Cliff,” “The Crossing”). But at 71, he shows he’s still got those “Killer/Hard Boiled” gangster chops for Netflix with “ManHunt,” a Sino-Japanese thriller with a silly plot, vintage Woo fights and a lot of blood.

It’s a messy mixed-bag movie built around the “Lucy” plot (a secret superdrug that makes its users super-soldiers, psychotic killers whose pain threshold is through the roof). But it’s John Woo. We love John Woo. You can’t be an action film fan and not want to see it.

And on Netflix, you can start and stop and rewatch “the cool bits” over and over. Laugh when the heroes — a fugitive lawyer (Zhang Hanyu) and flinty cop (Masaharu Fukuyama) — are lashed together with handcuffs, chase each other and brawl over Jetskis (Or are they SeaDoos?) as they flea corrupt cops and biker assassin babes all over scenic Japan. 

Qui Du (Zhang) is a Chinese-based fixer/lawyer for Tenjin Pharmaceuticals who wakes up after a corporate party in dead with a dead woman. The cops are there in a flash, and as they do in bad movies, they tell Qui Du he’s about to die in a set up. Which gives him the chance to escape, the first of many.

Woo escalates these chase scenes from a sprint through crowded streets and subway tunnels, to a Mini Cooper, Jetskis (or SeaDoos) and so on. What, no planes?

Inspector Yamura (Fukuyama) is the brooding, tough-talking detective who on the very day Qui Du escapes, is breaking in a too-young/too-cute sidekick (Nanami Sakuraba), who smiles up to the point where some murderous punks take her hostage.

“You can’t go anywhere with that idiot,” Yamura growls to the villains. “It’s her first day. Give her a break!”

Yamura gets most of the best lines here, delivered in Japanese in a neo-Mijune growl.  He’s hurled into the hunt for Qui Du, tracks him down repeatedly and somehow lets him go. Repeatedly.

“There’s only one end for a fugitive! A DEAD end!”

Qui Du must evade capture so that he can figure out the real killer, get to the Tenjin boss (Jun Kunimura) and find out what’s going on. 

His deadliest and most persistent pursuers are straight out of a James Bond movie — sister assassins Rain and Dawn, played with pistol-packing verve by Ji-won Ha and Angeles Woo (Yes, she’s Woo’s daughter. Cinema nepotism knows no borders). 

man2

Qui Du’s most fascinating encounter is with a group of Japanese hobos and the sage Sakaguchi (veteran Japanese martial arts movie star Yasuaki Kurata). Yes, there are still Japanese hobos.

The picture is all over the place, with many many actors, many plot threads and characters switching from Japanese to Chinese to hard-boiled English in a flash.

But John Woo knows pacing, knows how to keep a movie on its feet and hurtling forward, and damned if “ManHunt” doesn’t manage that, flaws and failings and all.

It’s not one of his best, not on a par with “A Better Tomorrow,” “The Killer” or his Hollywood debut, the Van Damme Cajun kill-off “Hard Target.” But hey, it’s John Woo. Even his failures are more interesting than this week’s Hollywood genre actioner directed by this or that no name film school alumnus.

2half-star6

MPAA Rating: unrated, graphic violence and lots of it, drug abuse, sexual situations

Cast:Hanyu ZhangMasaharu Fukuyama, Ji-won Ha, Angeles WooNanami SakurabaJi-won Ha, Angeles Woo

Credits: Written and directed by John Woo, based on the Jukô Nishimura novel. A Netflix release.

Running time: 1:46

Posted in Reviews, previews, profiles and movie news | Comments Off on Netflixable? John Woo in winter still brings epic fights, in “ManHunt”

Movie Review — “Steven Tyler: Out on a Limb” in Nashville

ty3

Steven Tyler is lead singer/front-man for America’s most enduring rock’n roll band, Aerosmith, a sometime talent judge for “American Idol” and a guy who knows opportunity when it knocks at his door.

Run-DMC covers “Walk this Way” in the late ’80s? Let’s try an Aerosmith comeback.

A whole new audience discovers or re-discovers him on TV? Let’s do a solo album in Nashville, one with a little twang to it. “We’re All Somebody from Somewhere” didn’t overwhelm “the critics.” But it hit number one on the sales charts, and that prompted the ultimate country homage from the “Demon of Screamin'” — a show at Nashville’s famed Ryman Auditorium, made legendary by its long association with the Grand Ole Opry.

And you can’t do that show without cameras present. Aerosmith’s longtime filmmaker in residence Casey Tebo captured the show, interviewed Tyler’s fans among his rock peers and gives us a highly-sanitized “backstage” look at the-then 69 year-old rocker, taking such a “risk” with this venture that they call the show and the film “Out on a Limb.”

The concert itself is terrific. His stage-banter includes little half-confessional monologues — “Blame it on Joe Perry, blame it on my ex-wife.” — memories of meeting his guitar-player/co-band leader Perry, and a hilariously disingenuous account of his early life, “tiny town in New Hampshire” “country music” bonafides He’s about as country as a Kardashian.

Dad was a Juilliard-trained classical musician, and young Steven Victor Tallarico grew up in New York…city. He just MET Perry at a rock show in Sunapee, New Hampshire.

But aside from that balderdash, a faintly cornpone stage set and wearing jeans, he’s the same old Steven, same scarf-bedecked mike stand, same belting style, same long-hair and jewelry, a little less makeup.

ty4

And the show captured here is terrific,  three horn players added to his “Loving Mary Band” — female drummer, fiddler, bassist, and accordion/harmonic player, a couple of guys with guitars. It’s a Janis Joplin/Joe Cocker styled ’60s band, not quite rhythm and blues, not country either. They deliver an electric blues set, both the new songs, the Aerosmith tunes he includes, with the odd Janis Joplin cover mixed in.

The band can play, the ladies are all top-flight backup singers in addition to instrumentalists. Hearing Tyler and Co. cover “Piece of My Heart” or “Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)” is sometimes thrilling, and at the very least just plain fun.

It’s the backstage stuff that parks the film more in “for hardcore fans only” territory. Director Casey Tebo rounds up only the most adoring acolytes — including Slash and Tyler’s MANAGER (Rebecca Warfield) — as interview subjects. Tebo narrates the film with similar fawning accolades, and comes off seriously insufferable as he does. Calling yourself an “egomaniacal director” before somebody else does wasn’t a smart play.

Shooting those scenes, flattery from one and all, unexplained random snatches of Steven being Steven (never unguarded, even when driving his vintage Bentley) in locations that are never identified and shot in black and white, gives the picture visual variety, but no insights.

If you’ve ever seen another concert documentary, you get why this material is necessary. But I’m at a loss recalling a film that gave us less candid or entertaining behind-the-scenes views. Even Miley Cyrus’s concert films capture temper, conflict, “the stakes” behind this or that presentation, with more candor.

I had to check his credits to make sure Tebo wasn’t behind the similarly-sanitized Justin Bieber docs.

Even if one and all exaggerate the “what he had to lose” element, even if this music is “country” only in the modern arena rock country sense, “Out on a Limb” can be appreciated for taking a singer (slightly) out of his element.

And Tebo’s film gives us the sense that Tyler was living the dream most every rock singer of his generation shares, to front a Big Band, with horns and backup singers, paying homage to some old favorites, and vamping through others, and having a ball doing it.

2half-star6

MPAA Rating: unrated, squeaky clean

Cast: Steven Tyler, Slash, The Loving Mary Band, David Hodges, Rebecca Warfield, Adam DeLeo, Nathan Barlowe

Credits:Directed by Casey Tebo. An eOne/Momentum release.

Running time: 1:35

Posted in Reviews, previews, profiles and movie news | Comments Off on Movie Review — “Steven Tyler: Out on a Limb” in Nashville