RISE OF THE RED HOT CHILI PEPPERS: OUR BROTHER, HILLEL

Hillel Slovak and Cliff Martinez in TOUGH GUYS Documentary Date 2916 Rating: ****

At the end of THE RISE OF THE RED HOT CHILI PEPPERS: OUR BROTHER, HILLEL, both lead singer Anthony Keidis and bassist Flea say that people won't forget original lead guitarist and co-founder Hillel Slovak... 

Which would actually be impossible, because no matter what era of the band you listen to, his colorful punk/funk strumming fervor sustained with initial replacement Jack Sherman and eventual semi-permanent replacement John Frusciante, who's 11th hour praise of the late guitarist is one of the most beautiful interviews in any rock doc, punctuating how much of an influence the late funky player was... he set the pattern of the band's sound forever...

Hillel Slovak and the Red Hot Chili Peppers in TOUGH GUYS

And yet, beginning in a kind of old school prog-rock band, we never really learn how Slovak went from that 1970's chunky power-chord rock sound to the new wave techno sound of his in-between band What Is This to the funk-filled discovery of what glued the band together... 

That's most likely because he had passed away after their third album (HIS second with the band), and what's left are sporadic diary entries and a few words from his former girlfriend (a widow of sorts) and a lookalike brother... But mostly this doc centers on both Kiedis and Flea about how the band formed, and it all began with seeing Slovak playing in that band in high school... before either were musicians, or even wanted to be...

Hillel Slovak and the Red Hot Chili Peppers in TOUGH GUYS

Then kind of wisping through the beginning stages of the band's formation that included hanging out and getting stoned... which inevitably leads to a few rushed recollections of drug abuse by band members... Which isn't bad since things don't drag or get too wordy or preachy or melodramatic... nor does the doc rely on that kind of new author-intrusive device of the interviewees pretending to be shocked about something revealed by the interviewer...

The only genuine perspective comes from the two survivors of a band that blew up after a decade of LA nightclub punk-rock beginnings shown in a collage of interesting artwork and just enough music for what's both a tribute and testament.

Hillel Slovak and the Red Hot Chili Peppers in TOUGH GUYS

Hillel Slovak and the Red Hot Chili Peppers in TOUGH GUYS with Flea and Anthony Kiedes

Hillel Slovak and the Red Hot Chili Peppers in TOUGH GUYS with Flea and Anthony Kiedes

Hillel Slovak and the Red Hot Chili Peppers in TOUGH GUYS with Flea and Anthony Kiedes

Hillel Slovak and the Red Hot Chili Peppers in TOUGH GUYS

Hillel Slovak and the Red Hot Chili Peppers in TOUGH GUYS

 

MAESTRO (2023)

Fifty minutes into Bradley Cooper's MAESTRO, his directorial and starring-role biopic of composer Leonard Bernstein, he's discussing a possible book written about all his accomplishments, from teaching children on television to his best remembered work, West Side Story...

And yet we never got to witness any of it, instead  listening to he and classy wife Felicia Montealegre (a put-upon Carey Mulligan) within an intellectually-rambling romance from picnics to parties (in-between sporadic bisexual trysts) and not much else about the man that Cooper seems to have more fun portraying as a flamboyant and sophisticated, British-mannered, chain-smoking proto-beatnik than celebrating the legendary musical genius built right into the title... And aesthetically Cooper's cinematic influences... from LENNY to RAGING BULL to CAPOTE... are on full avant-garde display but with nothing behind it, really, except mere window dressing... with tinted glass. Grade: D

THEM CROOKED VULTURES (music)

band: THEM CROOKED VULTURES

album: THEM CROOKED VULTURES

released: 2009

line-up: Dave Grohl (drums), John Paul Jones (bass), Josh Homme (guitars, vocals)

rating: *1/2

When I heard that Dave Grohl, one of my favorite "modern" drummers, who banged the skins on Nirvana's last two studio albums and then helmed his own outfit, FOO FIGHTERS, playing drums (along with guitars and singing) on the first two studio albums before allowing the Taylor Hawkins to take over completely... And John Paul Jones, bassist/keyboardist for the greatest band of all time, Led Zeppelin, had formed a band together... I was (to use the title of one of my favorite Foo Fighter's tunes) ECSTATIC! Grohl on drums, Jones on bass... and the lead singer from QUEENS OF THE STONE AGE, a band I never liked, provides not only lead vocals but lead (and rhythm) guitars as well. As most people can figure, a singer gets the last word while the guitarist paints the real picture. So in the case of this particular supergroup, the guy who paints the last word, Josh Homme... sounding like a wannabe Scott "Stone Temple Pilots" Weiland and creating riffs that are both repetitive and boring... turns what could have been a powerhouse band into... to quote Captain James T. Kirk... "Standard Orbit". You heard one song, you heard them all. And none are very good.

BOUND FOR GLORY

year: 1976

cast: David Carradine

director: Hal Ashby

rating: ***1/2

I love the late David Carradine as an actor but in many films he seems to be sort of... not trying very hard. Well this might be because he often played characters who were cool enough to NOT HAVE TO try very hard but rather to be themselves: cool dudes who can kick ass if need be. But here he's really acting and at the same time is completely natural and doesn't seem to be trying at all: but with excellent results. And that's him singing and playing the guitar, as you need to be a REAL musician to portray folk music icon Woodie Guthrie: the man who did to music what John Dillinger did to the depression. Hal Ashby in his Robert Altmaneque style of letting nature take its course allows everything to fall into place JUST RIGHT, and the film - although centering on a very political man - never gets too preachy. If it were made today, I doubt political-subtlety would prevail.

THE JACKSONS: AN AMERICAN DREAM

title: THE JACKSONS: AN AMERICAN DREAM

year: 1992

cast: Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs, Angela Bassett, Billy Dee Williams

rating: ***

A decent biopic miniseries that could have been great had they put as much into the stardom of the Jacksons (and Michael in particular) then they did the struggle to get there. Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs, who hasn't been in much since "Welcome Back Kotter", plays the dominating patriarch, Joe Jackson, and while his performance is decent enough, there's not enough reasons explained behind his sometimes overly temperamental methods of making (forcing) his five kids to practice their singing and dancing in order to "make it big". Since they did make it big, one can say... Joe did alright. But since he made them call him "Joseph" instead of father, cheated on his wife, didn't want them to have girlfriends, and wasn't very friendly... perhaps fame wasn't worth the price of having a very controlling dad. And it's not exactly clear whether we should love him, hate him, or just put up with him... like the family. The first half of the miniseries, beginning with Joe and his wife (played by Angela Bassett) meeting, having many children, living in poverty, practicing to become a band and then being signed by Barry Gordy's Motown label, is quite entertaining. All the kids, especially the younger Michael, do a fantastic job acting, dancing and singing. But then when they get famous things are on fast-forward, eventually cutting from 1976, after the Jacksons drop out of Motown records and go on their own, to 1983... a year after Michael's megaton album Thriller had already been released (yet he's working on Thriller-tracks in the studio, which is confusing). We never see the leap Michael goes through with Thriller - still the biggest album of all time - catapulting him into an icon - and what this instant titanic stardom did to his brothers (c'mon, they HAD TO be jealous). The actor playing the adult Michael, unlike the younger actor, seemed to be doing a mere imitation. And then, showing the Jacksons during their 1985 "Victory Tour", it all seems to wrap up much too quickly, leaving out a lot of important things having to do with success and it's ramifications. But the first half, as the family works to make it big - is good enough. At least for some awesome Motown music and a little bit of history - even though it is, for the most part, Jackson propaganda. But, being that Michael had enough bad things centered on them, why not? After all, despite the plethora of quirky (and bizarre and allegedly perverted) habits, he did have talent. And even though his vehicle eventually derailed, for a while there, the kid had quite a drive.

CONTROL

title: CONTROL

year: 2007

cast: Sam Riley, Samantha Morton

director: Anton Corbjin

rating: **

It would be silly for me to point out that a movie about the short, tortured career of "Joy Division" founder and lead singer Iam Curtis was too depressing. But what depressed me most is the film centered too much on the relationships with women (two in particular) and not enough on how the band formed and climbed to cult stardom. It felt like half a movie, and a long one at that. Not enough of their music, or what inspired it. Their sound was, for 1978, very ahead of its time and a glimpse into what sparked their machine-like monotonic sub-pop would have been a lot more entertaining then watching him arguing with his put-upon wife, a relationship which begins out of nowhere and then goes sour way too quickly. There's not much of a story-arc, although the acting is good (British actors, say no more), the black and white cinematography is top-notch, and when you do hear their music, it does sound excellent. But there needed to be more of the climb and less of the fall.