Movie Reviews: Leap of Faith / The Orange Years / Sound of Metal / Belushi
For a guy who hasn’t been to a movie theater since February, I’ve been more than making up for it with loads of movie reviews in my home! This week I had several I got to review:
Leap of Faith: William Friedkin on The Exorcist
A few years ago when I reviewed 78/52, the documentary about the shower scene in Psycho, I noted that director Alexandre O. Philippe has become one of the great pop culture documentarians of our time following The People vs. George Lucas and Doc of the Dead. Philippe is back and he’s taking on one of the most talked about director/film shoots in history: Leap of Faith: William Friedkin on The Exorcist takes on director Friedkin, who is now 85 years old. It’s just him talking about his influences, his experience and his many stories about directing 1973′s The Exorcist, which is considered by many to be the scariest movie ever made. In my directing class in college, the teacher mentioned a few of the tales of Friedkin. Beyond The French Connection and The Brink’s Job, I never got that into his films. This is not so much a documentary on The Exorcist as it is on Friedkin talking about his experience.
movie poster
The doc reminded me a lot of the Brian De Palma documentary De Palma, where the director subject is the only interviewee and is the central and only focal point of the doc. As a filmmaker myself, I found Friedkin’s stories to be quite engaging. It does venture into For Fans Only at times and if you haven’t seen The Exorcist, lots of luck keeping up with a lot of the stories. But if you are a fan or a 70s Director Geek, you’ll devour this doc.
Leap of Faith premiered on Shudder this week: https://exhibitapictures.com/films/leap-of-faith/
3 out of 5 stars
The Orange Years: The Nickelodeon Story
Premiering in an early iteration in 1977, and officially launching as a new cable TV channel in 1979, Nickelodeon was the first TV channel geared entirely towards kids. I happen to be the exact age of their demo as I began watching it in the mid-late 80s. We didn’t have cable in my house, but when I went over my Dad’s house, I loved watching Nickelodeon shows like Pinwheel, Today’s Special, Nick Rocks (their music video show), Danger Mouse, You Can’t Do That on Television, Double Dare and more! Around 1988, Nickelodeon had a contest where they were giving away 1000 slinkies. My Dad and I entered a few times and we ended up winning 2 of the 1000 slinkies. But my favorite show was Rated K: For Kids By Kids, the kids’ movie review show. I was into it at the very moment I was getting into movies and watching Siskel & Ebert, it was tweens and teens talking about movies in a way you could relate. I sent in fan letters and even hoped to get on the show as a critic one day. Once in a while I got a postcard back thanking me and one time I even was told my fan letter was selected in a contest and I won sneakers! But I digress.
movie poster (with lots of slime too)
Directors Scott Barber and Adam Sweeney have now given the golden age of Nickelodeon (the 80s and early 90s) the documentary treatment with The Orange Years. It begins in the 1977 when it was a part of Columbus, OH’s QUBE cable system, then evolved into a cable TV channel. Among the interviewees are former executives, but the doc really kicks into gear when they get into shows: YCDTOT, Double Dare, Hey Dude, Clarissa Explains It All, and many more. Many noteworthy interviewees include Nick alum Marc Summers, Melissa Joan Hart, Kenan Thompson, Danny Cooksey, and Graham Yost. Since Ren and Stimpy got the documentary treatment earlier this year with Happy Happy Joy Joy (read my review here), that series gets mentioned, but not as much as other shows.
As someone who made a documentary about a 1980s TV channel (Boston’s music video channel V66), I felt like there were a lot of similarities to the story I told. Even though my doc was about a regional channel and not a national cable channel, there were a lot of similarities in terms of something new and unlike anything else on television that is geared towards a specific audience that was fanatical. As a burst of joygasmic nostalgia, this doc was off the charts! I had a grin ear to ear watching some of the old clips and seeing some of the cast members today. It brought back so many memories! However, as a documentary, I wished there had been a little more of a narrative structure. Much of the doc is made up of segments about each of the shows, but I kind of wished they had more of a sequential story arc in terms of the channel’s evolution in between the show segments. Towards the beginning and towards the end, they got into the company, the branding, the ratings, etc. It might have been a better narrative to sprinkle that throughout. And also - I do wish Rated K got a segment too! If you were a kid in the 80s or 90s, you’ll be in TV Heaven seeing some of the old clips.
Gravitas is releasing The Orange Years this week: http://www.theorangeyears.com/
4 out of 5 stars
Sound of Metal
Opening this week in theaters before it premieres on Amazon Prime Video in December is Sound of Metal. Here is my review from IFFBoston Fall Focus a few weeks ago.
movie poster
For info on Sound of Metal: https://www.amazon.com/Sound-Metal-Riz-Ahmed/dp/B08KZCFW1C
2.5 out of 5 stars
Belushi
movie poster
In the 1996 college comedy Glory Daze, Alyssa Milano stumbles into Ben Affleck’s room and notices the poster of John Belushi wearing his College sweater on the wall and asks him “what’s with this poster of Jim Belushi?” and he replies “John! He was a genius”. More like a comedic genius! Whenever you see a list of the greatest SNL cast members of all time, Belushi is almost always towards the top of the list, if not #1. The fact that Belushi died in 1982 at the age of 33, made his performances that much more special. Sure there’s been some great SNL cast members, but he was a force of nature and his scene-stealing performances in movies like Animal House and The Blues Brothers are now legendary.
Director R.J. Cutler has delivered an epic documentary that Belushi truly deserves. Using audio from an oral history of John Belushi, extremely rare letters, home movies and photos, this is a very comprehensive doc. It shows Belushi’s early beginning in suburban Illinois, his early taste of performing, and then his evolution to National Lampoon, Second City and eventual a part of the very first cast of SNL. But the doc also does not shy away from his demons, which eventually lead to his fatal drug overdose.
In the last decade there have been several docs on SNL cast members including Chris Farley (I Am Chris Farley), Darrell Hammond (Cracked Up), Bill Murray (The Bill Murray Stories), and Gilda Radner (Love, Gilda - check out my interview with director Lisa D’Apolito). Admittedly, some of those docs are better than others. But as a die-hard fan of SNL and the show’s history, I always check out these docs. Belushi benefits from the rare access they got to the archival footage and the access to the interviewees from the oral history including Carrie Fisher, Harold Ramis, Lorne Michaels, Chevy Chase, Dan Aykroyd, John Landis and John’s brother Jim Belushi. When they didn’t have archival footage, they made use of some cool animation too. This is definitely worth checking out!
Belushi premieres on Showtime on Sunday: https://www.sho.com/titles/3433572/belushi
4 out of 5 stars
