Movie review by Greg Carlson

Premiering at the Toronto International Film Festival in September, “Catherine Called Birdy” lands on Amazon Prime Video following a short theatrical window. One of two 2022 films directed by the perpetually controversial Lena Dunham, the medieval bildungsroman was a labor of love based on the filmmaker’s professed affection for Karen Cushman’s 1994 Newbery Honor Book. Dunham, who also adapted the novel for the screen, delivers the most polished and confident feature of the four she has made so far, demonstrating a genuine affinity for both spirited anachronisms and timeless challenges that outline the similarities and differences faced by young women in the 13th century versus today.

The title character is played by a winning Bella Ramsey, perhaps best known as Lyanna Mormont in “Game of Thrones.” Currently 19, Ramsey believably inhabits the rambunctious and irrepressible 14-year-old confronted with the painful social realities and expectations that come with the territory and the times. The central conflict and several subplots revolve around the custom of arranged marriages. Though not long a teenager, Birdy has virtually no say regarding her husband-to-be. To make matters worse, the fragile economics of her family place tremendous pressure on Birdy’s father Lord Rollo (Andrew Scott) to choose a groom based on financial security above all else.

Despite the unwelcome reality that she will likely be married off for money and most certainly not for love, Birdy lives life at a breakneck pace and finds joy where she can. Dunham pokes at the outrageous unfairness of the patriarchal grip governing the women of the Middle Ages without reducing her supporting ensemble to flat and predictable stereotypes, even when it would be convenient to do so. Birdy’s attempts to sabotage every suitor play out a bit like the shenanigans on display in “Harold and Maude” when Mrs. Chasen arranges dates for her son. The frontrunner and worst of Birdy’s lot, a wealthy lech nicknamed Shaggy Beard (Paul Kaye), is only encouraged by the girl’s boorish behavior.

In a spot-on observation, Alison Willmore writes, “ … misogynistic brutality has always seemed like one of the fictional universe’s essential elements, part of an insistence that its crypto-European historical trappings be accompanied by some period-appropriate dehumanization.” Fortunately, Dunham refuses those conventions without erasing the large and small struggles faced by all women of the era. And even though the screen version risks some major alterations to Cushman’s original story – perhaps most notably in making Rollo his daughter’s hero by tweaking the climax – the essence of Birdy survives.

Like Sofia Coppola’s “Marie Antoinette” and Brian Helgeland’s “A Knight’s Tale” (to name just two), “Catherine Called Birdy” takes great pleasure in placing perfect, period-incongruent needle-drops of great pop songs that provide thematic commentary on the action. Carter Burwell’s score is performed a cappella by Roomful of Teeth and several familiar tunes, including Mazzy Star’s “Fade Into You,” the Angels’ “My Boyfriend’s Back,” and Rod Stewart’s “Young Turks” are delivered by Misty Miller. In Birdy’s world, girls are not allowed to attend a public hanging, go on a crusade, marry who they love, or have autonomy over their own bodies. Dunham’s movie reminds us that – at least on the latter point – the times are still darker than we’d like to believe.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Photography buffs and silent film aficionados will enjoy Marc Shaffer’s feature documentary “Exposing Muybridge,” a visually engaging account of curious cinematic forefather Eadweard Muybridge. Muybridge’s place as a film pioneer was ultimately secured via the influential motion studies he produced following his ill-fated collaboration with railroad baron Leland Stanford in the early 1870s, but Shaffer attempts to put his subject’s entire creative life in context. Drawing from a series of new interviews with historians, theorists, photographers, and (in actor Gary Oldman) an enthusiastic collector, Shaffer recounts the dizzying highs and abject lows of Muybridge’s fascinating career.

Film students young and old will certainly recall class viewings of any number of Muybridge’s photo sequences come to life through animation, but so iconic are these images, Shaffer ends his film with a montage of allusions in paintings by Francis Bacon and David Hockney, Seth Shipman’s DNA data storage experiments, the photography of William Wegman and Sol LeWitt, and even U2’s “Lemon” and the animated series “Rick and Morty.” Had Shaffer been in production a little later, he could have added Jordan Peele’s “Nope” to the above list. At just under 90 minutes, the film doesn’t wear out its welcome, but there are a few aspects of Muybridge’s colorful legacy that could have used more detail and consideration.

Given that Muybridge’s life spanned 1830 to 1904 – a period, as the movie points out, of remarkable mechanization and modernization – it is a rather tall task for Shaffer to go into as much depth as Rebecca Solnit’s essential 2003 book “River of Shadows: Eadweard Muybridge and the Technological Wild West.” The talking heads interviewed by Shaffer, including Oscar-winner Oldman, are erudite, charming, knowledgeable, and passionate, but it is a real shame that Solnit is not among them. Her exceptional work, a must-read companion to Shaffer’s documentary, synthesizes several themes alluded to in the film.

That’s not to say that Shaffer doesn’t acknowledge the most remarkable milestones that link Muybridge to evolutions in image-making. One of the most enjoyable parts of the movie sees photographers Byron Wolfe and Mark Klett lining up near the exact spot where Muybridge took a breathtaking landscape plate in Yosemite National Park. By walking in Muybridge’s footsteps, minus his most reckless and perilous risk-taking, Wolfe and Klett link past and present with spine-tingling immediacy. The ways in which Muybridge edited and retouched pictures by adding dramatic details such as the favored cloud he placed in multiple compositions anticipated cinema’s commonplace manipulation of “reality” in favor of fantasy.

Shaffer frequently returns to Muybridge’s sketchy, dangerous personal character (or lack thereof). In 1874, Muybridge murdered Harry Larkyns, the lover of his spouse Flora, reportedly saying “I have a message for you from my wife” as he pulled the trigger. Over the decades Muybridge scholars have speculated that his utter lack of inhibition could be traced to a serious head injury suffered in an 1860 stagecoach crash. The personal and the professional are often interlaced, and Shaffer’s interview subjects go on to assertively debunk the “science” claims that Muybridge used to legitimize the costly University of Pennsylvania project that would, more than his majestic vistas, his San Francisco panorama, his volumes of stereograph cards, and his zoöpraxiscope, cement his place in history alongside proof that at a gallop, a horse does indeed lift all four hooves off the ground at the same time.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Known in its original French language as “Avec amour et acharnement” (“With Love and Fury” or “With Love and Relentlessness”), the first of two Claire Denis features released in 2022 swapped original English language title “Fire” for the more satisfying and effective “Both Sides of the Blade.” The latter name is taken from a song by longtime Denis collaborators Tindersticks, and its evocative lines suggesting the pain of being cut in two echo the film’s central love triangle. Following a February premiere at the Berlinale, where Denis received the Silver Bear for Best Director, the movie is currently available to stream in the United States via several major providers. It is well worth seeking out.

The second Denis film of 2022, Cannes Grand Prix-winner “Stars at Noon,” is currently in cinemas. Both movies are based on novels Denis adapted for the screen with writing partners. In the case of “Both Sides of the Blade,” the filmmaker worked with Christine Angot to prepare and reimagine Angot’s 2018 book “Un tournant de la vie” (“A Turning Point in Life”). The opening scenes of the movie bask in the warm ocean waters of a loving vacation idyll enjoyed by Sara (Juliette Binoche, making her third film with Denis) and Jean (Vincent Lindon, recently tremendous in “Titane”). They will shortly return to a chilly Paris and a series of unforeseen conflicts that challenge their union.

Denis, now 76 years old, rejected a producer’s plea for the on-camera events of “Both Sides of the Blade” to be free of masks. The director, however, insisted on grounding the action of the story in the midst of the pandemic. The eerie quiet and the dispiriting isolation intensify Sara’s reaction when she catches sight of ex-lover François (Grégoire Colin). Instantly, she is overcome with butterflies and long-buried feelings that will soon threaten the security of her relationship with Jean. Matters are further complicated when Jean – who was also friends with François years ago – announces that he intends to form a business partnership with Sara’s old flame.

Be it film, novel, poem, or song, the triangle is one of the most frequent tropes in storytelling. Denis is such a gifted moviemaker, though, that cliche is absent from the precise and specific moments inside her intelligently-constructed universe. Intriguing details, like Sara’s work as the host of a radio program or the reasons that sent Jean to prison, are deliberately unexplored and never used as central turning points in the narrative. For some viewers, the lack of greater context for these tantalizing ingredients will frustrate and/or contribute to a sense that the story is incomplete. Others will appreciate the way that Denis is able to keep us off balance and curious about where everything is going.

The central point of view belongs to Sara, but Jean receives equitable treatment. The movie’s primary subplot involves Jean’s estranged son Marcus (Issa Perica), a biracial teenager being raised outside Paris by Jean’s mother (Bulle Ogier). Jean’s post-incarceration inability or unwillingness to be present in his child’s life poses yet another of the film’s unanswered questions, but Denis finds ways to show how Jean’s absence is doing lasting, painful damage to Marcus. Both Sara and Jean lie to themselves and to others. Binoche, as brilliant as ever, draws us close to Sara even as we wonder at her disastrous, delirious choices.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Veteran documentarian Brett Morgen clamps down on the experimental and the experiential in “Moonage Daydream,” an odyssey traversing the starfields of the late, great David Bowie. Touted as the first feature to be fully authorized by the Bowie estate (a claim that could signal something good or something bad, depending on how you feel about attached strings), Morgen’s film draws from a purported “five millions assets” to dazzle the senses with a turbocharged hagiography of its workaholic subject. Like the director’s previous rock explorations, “Moonage Daydream” is best viewed on a massive screen with a powerful sound system.

While news reporters, talk show hosts, and breathless fans supply confirmation of Bowie’s convention-busting approach to pop cultural invention and reinvention, Morgen lets his subject provide the principal narration on-camera and via voiceover. Nixing talking heads and any freshly-recorded interviews conducted with associates, family members, and admirers either famous or common, the technique is a solid fit. “Moonage Daydream” is committed to art and artist. With few exceptions, like the acknowledgement of Bowie’s love for Iman, private life stays private. Morgen favors the constantly shifting, always protean man-of-many-faces in Bowie’s public (dis)guises.

Even at 140 minutes, “Moonage Daydream” can feel strangely hurried and musically incomplete. Many of Bowie’s signature songs, including “Space Oddity,” “Heroes,” “Let’s Dance,” “Ashes to Ashes,” “Changes,” “Starman,” “Modern Love,” “Life on Mars?” and several others pop in and out of the timeline, some fleetingly. Morgen makes the seemingly impossible choice to give a few tracks extended play, but the most devoted acolytes will certainly weep for the ones left behind (“The Man Who Sold the World,” “Young Americans,” “Queen Bitch,” “Rebel Rebel,” “China Girl,” “Fame,” etc.). Even so, Morgen deserves some credit for taking a big swing.

The director can also be commended for both analyzing and trusting a very particular audience. He has made something for fellow aficionados, as “Moonage Daydream” assumes that the viewer already knows a thing or two about its star. The uninitiated won’t get any kind of straightforward treatment of chronological career highlights, even if the film is very loosely organized into core periods that extend beyond the studio albums to touch on Bowie’s other pursuits, from visual art to theatre and film performance. Clips from his stage turn as John Merrick in “The Elephant Man” are accompanied by images from features including “Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence,” “The Hunger,” “The Man Who Fell to Earth,” and “Labyrinth.” Even so, sound edges vision.

When Morgen inserts shots of Bowie strutting with Tina Turner to sell Pepsi, or backseat moments from Alan Yentob’s “Cracked Actor,” “Moonage Daydream” toys with a level of critique that is otherwise mostly erased – like marriage number one to Angela Barnett. In general, the filmmaker falls back on his keen editorial skills to take us on an emotional ride capable of as much humor as contemplative, tearful darkness. So whether you count yourself as a diamond dog or an absolute beginner, trust Morgen to invite you to the dance hall. There’s no dress code, of course, but a finely tailored ice-blue suit by Freddie Burretti sure would look good.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

In “Nothing Compares,” director Kathryn Ferguson builds an airtight case for the reevaluation of music icon Sinead O’Connor, the Irish recording artist who achieved worldwide success and critical acclaim during the course of a career that attracted negative media attention like a magnet collecting nails. The film, now available on Showtime following a Sundance debut in January, transports viewers back three decades (and more) to focus initially on O’Connor’s tumultuous childhood, incendiary vocal talents, and early milestones before shifting to an assessment of the most outspoken and controversial choices that made as much or more noise as the heartbreakingly confessional songs on her brilliant albums.

Longtime fans already know the biography, but Ferguson applies remarkable editorial skill to make judicious choices regarding what to keep and what to omit. Archival material is plentiful and pointed, with O’Connor supplying much of the story in her own words and through a variety of talk show appearances and other television interviews. Along with several key collaborators, O’Connor’s first husband John Reynolds offers insightful commentary, as do admirers like Peaches and Kathleen Hanna. Ferguson skips talking heads, making an exception for the vintage O’Connor clips. The lack of on-camera interviews focuses attention on the evocative visuals.

Ferguson begins the film with O’Connor’s October 16, 1992 appearance at Madison Square Garden, where she was supposed to perform Bob Dylan’s “I Believe in You” as part of the show that would be collected as the “The 30th Anniversary Concert Celebration.” Met with a mixture of boos and applause, the shaken but defiant singer scratches the scheduled tune for an improvised reprise of Bob Marley’s “War,” the song she had recently chosen for the “Saturday Night Live” gig that would arouse a firestorm and inspire headlines, parodies, threats, opinion pieces, and boycotts. O’Connor’s “SNL” performance has aged much better than the embarrassing mock outrage of Joe Pesci and Madonna.

Without doubt, “Nothing Compares” would have been a much different viewing experience had Ferguson been granted permission to include the singer’s recording of the Prince song that signaled the apogee of O’Connor’s international fame (and which provides the movie’s title). The denial was made worse by Prince-sibling Sharon Nelson’s comments to “Billboard” that not only was O’Connor undeserving of the song’s use, Prince’s “version is the best.” As a diehard Prince fanatic, I will argue that Nelson is wrong on both counts. O’Connor’s cover is the definitive recording of the song.

Even though the absence of “Nothing Compares 2 U” stings, Ferguson handles its importance to O’Connor’s ascendant superstardom with appropriate grace. Fortunately, the wealth of intense and dazzling songs that came before and after – including “Mandinka,” “Troy,” “Just Like You Said It Would Be,” “I Want Your (Hands on Me),” “Black Boys on Mopeds,” “Jump in the River,” “The Emperor’s New Clothes,” “Three Babies,” “The Last Day of Our Acquaintance,” “I Am Stretched on Your Grave,” “Thank You for Hearing Me,” and others – are a testament to the integrity, principles, outrage, fearlessness, and political conviction O’Connor modeled years before the Catholic Church would publicly acknowledge the sexual abuse and assault of adults and children.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Writing recently in “The New Yorker,” Julian Lucas shares commentary that places into context the ongoing controversies assailing Gina Prince-Bythewood’s historical action drama “The Woman King.” Set in West Africa during the years encompassing the grim slave trade, the film has a champion and star in Best Supporting Actress Oscar-winner Viola Davis, who portrays with force and intensity the title character General Nanisca of the Kingdom of Dahomey (in what is now Benin). General consensus suggests that Prince-Bythewood’s 50-million-dollar film, which puts every cent – and then some – on the screen, will succeed despite any reasonable and unreasonable criticism it currently faces.

Even though Davis commands the headlining power, the film’s central protagonist is Thuso Mbedu’s Nawi, a tenacious orphan determined to enter the ranks of the Agojie, otherwise nicknamed the Dahomey Amazons by Western Europeans. Not in dispute is the existence of this electrifying military sisterhood, one of a tiny number of all-female, modern-era armies. In the film’s early sections, Prince-Bythewood draws much from the pageantry of the trials and tests of mettle staged by Patty Jenkins in “Wonder Woman.” Ryan Coogler’s “Black Panther,” which features the Dora Milaje – its own cohort of elite women warriors partly inspired by the Agojie –is another notable cinematic relation.

The Hollywood version of any script claiming to be based on a “true story” invites detractors to engage in a game pointing out any and every historical inaccuracy and narrative embellishment. Regarding “The Woman King,” Lucas takes the position that the “film’s conceit is, charitably, an elaborate exercise in wishful thinking.” At the heart of the matter: the one-sided depiction of a nation engaged in widespread enslavement being portrayed as philosophically abolitionist. Importantly, Lucas argues that “The Woman King” should not be held to a higher standard than the massive number of period films told from a white point-of-view, but the complete and complex argument should be read in full.

Clearly, most critics are on board with “The Woman King” no matter its historical misrepresentations. And Prince-Bythewood, a veteran whose 2000 debut feature “Love & Basketball” is a contemporary classic, stages the battle sequences with drive and clarity. But the script by Dana Stevens, based on a story by Stevens and Maria Bello, falls back on oversimplification when it should be embracing nuance and complexity. A subplot involving a forbidden romance between Nawi and a stupefyingly naive businessman-sailor named Santo Ferreira (Hero Fiennes Tiffin) is wholly unconvincing.

In an instant it is plain to see that Davis is superior to her material. She plays Nanisca with unrelenting resolve, square-jawed commitment, and looks (both her own gaze and her fearsome mien) that kill. She brings a weariness and sadness to the commander that speaks volumes about her feelings toward King Ghezo (John Boyega), a supremely self-confident monarch who clearly relishes his power as much as he enjoys the pleasure of his multiple wives. Like other elements in the film, the historical Ghezo differs from the fictionalized iteration. But for viewers who choose to focus on the adrenaline rush of the feminist warriors ready to challenge the patriarchy, “The Woman King” proudly wears its crown.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

The chatter surrounding director Olivia Wilde’s new movie “Don’t Worry Darling” reached fever pitch in the days leading up to this week’s wide release. Cynics began to wonder whether the gossip – including a purported on-set rift between the director and star Florence Pugh involving the tabloid-ready romance that Wilde began to share with cast member Harry Styles – blossomed from the work of the savvy publicists tending to the hype. The movie is neither a masterpiece nor a failure (I prefer Wilde’s warmer “Booksmart”), but it has definitely made the shortlist as one of the year’s most talked-about.

Pugh portrays Alice Chambers, a hopelessly devoted wife and helpmate to husband Jack (Styles), who works for a hush-hush desert-based endeavor known as the Victory Project. While Jack and the other husbands of the New Frontier speed off to work each sunny morning in their candy-colored autos, the wives attend ballet class led by Shelley (Gemma Chan), the spouse of Victory co-founder Frank (Chris Pine). Cooking, cleaning, and keeping house do not distract Alice from a growing suspicion that her immaculate surroundings are some kind of gilded cage.

One can take a pick of keywords primed to launch a collection of “Don’t Worry Darling” essays: gaslighting, tradwives, hysteria, incels, and toxic masculinity are just a handful that have already been the subject of commentaries on the film. At CinemaCon, Wilde cited “Inception,” “The Matrix,” and “The Truman Show” as inspirations, but “The Stepford Wives” has been name-checked more often, and plenty of other movies – from “Parents” to “Swallow” – intersect thematically or stylistically with Wilde’s dark vision.

Whether or not you’ll think the film is any good depends in large measure on your willingness to suspend disbelief. A rewrite of the 2019 Black List version by Carey Van Dyke and Shane Van Dyke (who receive story credit), Katie Silberman’s screenplay turns on a bold if not entirely satisfactory twist. Supporters insist that Wilde shrewdly interrogates a patriarchy that thrives and proliferates as a direct result of keeping the bodies and actions of women under strict control. Others point to an abundance of red herrings and plot holes as nagging liabilities.

Along with Pugh, the late 1950s/early 1960s setting is the star attraction of “Don’t Worry Darling.” The arresting trailers for the film showcased a midcentury modern design aesthetic that all but screamed a warning to the imperiled Alice regarding the deceit of appearances. Richard Neutra’s 1946 Kaufmann House serves as the home of Frank and Shelley. In addition to that legendary Palm Springs landmark, the community is represented by the incredible Canyon View Estates, the Palm Springs Visitors Center, and the Palm Springs Art Museum. These spaces, complemented by sharp choices in Los Angeles, La Quinta, Pasadena, and Newberry Springs (the site of the otherworldly Volcano House), will have design fanatics salivating.

The human beings are another matter. With the possible exception of Pine’s watchful and mysterious boss, none of the members of the ensemble approach the quality of Pugh’s performance. As the frustratingly underwritten Alice, she must convince the viewer of her love for, and emotional investment in, husband Jack long after we’ve smelled a rat. The ample running time clocks in at just over two hours, and there is no doubt the movie would be improved with at least fifteen fewer minutes of the simmering dread that recurs in both Alice’s nightmares and the mock-sincere interactions she shares with her “close friends.”

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Making her English-language feature debut, Polish filmmaker Agnieszka Smoczyńska fails to replicate the quality and originality of either of her previous two movies. Both “The Lure,” which received a warm home media welcome from the Criterion Collection, and “Fugue” attracted well-deserved attention for Smoczyńska’s storytelling instincts and bold visual choices. “The Silent Twins,” adapted from Marjorie Wallace’s 1986 book of the same title, has all the makings of an intensely dramatic “based on a true story” experience. But the screenplay by novelist Andrea Seigel struggles to make sense of the unorthodox relationship of the protagonists.

June Gibbons (played as a child by Leah Mondesir-Simmonds before Letitia Wright takes over) and Jennifer Gibbons (Tamara Lawrance provides the grown-up version and Eva-Arianna Baxter plays the younger one) were twin sisters born in a military hospital in Yemen in 1963 to Caribbean immigrants who lived in England and later in Wales. Developing a fierce codependence, the girls spoke a speedily-enunciated Bajan Creole based on dialect from their parents’ native Barbados. Victimized by racist school bullies, June and Jennifer would further develop their cryptophasia, eventually shutting out all others and communicating almost exclusively with one another.

Smoczyńska opens the film with the voices of the young June and Jennifer narrating the credits. Matched with handmade artifacts that will recur in stop-motion sequences placed throughout the film, the promising start echoes the legendary title sequence Stephen Frankfurt designed for “To Kill a Mockingbird.” Frankfurt said that his goal was “to find a way to get into the head of a child,” and that is precisely the feeling emanating from the first frames of “The Silent Twins.” Soon, Lawrance and Wright will convey the peaks and valleys of the intimate connection between June and Jennifer.

Echoing the challenge faced by the mermaid sisters in “The Lure,” the most engaging section of “The Silent Twins” unfolds when the sisters seek out the companionship of an American teenager (Jack Bandeira) who is more than willing to provide the carnal education sought especially by Jennifer. The music cues, costumes, and choreography on display in these segments sparkle with vitality. Later, once the twins are committed to Broadmoor, the terrifying, high-security psychiatric hospital where they were held for years, the movie shifts toward a preoccupation with unpleasant conditions and the key conundrum facing the Gibbons siblings: abandon their secret language/connection and secure freedom or stick with it and be held under lock and key.

Jon Amiel directed a made-for-TV version of “The Silent Twins” for the BBC in 1986. The screenplay for that edition was written by Wallace the same year her book was published. I have not seen the movie, but would love to compare versions separated by more than 35 years. In this latest piece, both Lawrance and Wright deserve credit for depicting the idiosyncratic personalities of Jennifer and June – loving and fighting as artistic collaborators and jealous rivals – but “The Silent Twins” plugs away without the urgency or rising stakes that would invite viewers to identify with the special world inhabited by the women.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Co-directed by Saul Williams (who also wrote the screenplay and music) and Anisia Uzeyman (who also photographed and co-art directed), “Neptune Frost” recently made its way to a 2022 limited theatrical release via Kino Lorber following a 2021 Cannes premiere in the Directors Fortnight section of the festival. A vivid musical mashup blending science fiction with an emphatic political statement on the exploitation of African nations by American corporations greedy for the tantalum used in cell phones, computers, vehicles, and cameras, “Neptune Frost” makes for a visually and aurally arresting cinematic experience well worth seeking out.

Deeply committed to anti-capitalism and anti-colonialism, the movie introduces a handful of characters affiliated with a hacker collective operating on the fringes of safety and society within an oppressive police state. At the center of the cast is Neptune, a nonbinary runaway played by two actors: Cheryl Isheja and Elvis Ngabo. Neptune, who experiences an otherworldly connection to coltan, gets close to miner Matalusa (Bertrand Ninteretse), whose brother has been murdered while toiling for the precious ore. They interact with passionate disruptors like Memory (Eliane Umuhire) and Elohel (Rebecca Uwamahoro) to battle against the gross imbalance of the status quo.

Most reviews have made a point to identify “Neptune Frost” with Afrofuturism, the descriptive term coined in 1993 by Mark Dery in his essay “Black to the Future.” Arguably more prominent in recorded music than in feature film, the concept experienced a mainstream surge with the massive success of Ryan Coogler’s “Black Panther” in 2018. Ashley Clark, who curated the series “Space Is the Place: Afrofuturism on Film” for the Brooklyn Academy of Music in 2015, writes that the choices for the program were “united by one key theme: the centring of the international black experience in alternate and imagined realities, whether fiction or documentary; past or present; science fiction or straight drama.”

Common to many musicals, the biggest ideas take precedence over intimate character-building; it is no surprise to see Lin-Manuel Miranda listed as one of the movie’s executive producers (Ezra Miller also produced, but given the performer’s ongoing woes, the less said about their participation the better). Williams originally conceived “Neptune Frost” for the stage or even as a graphic novel. The music, which draws from his 2016 album “MartyrLoserKing,” is without question the film’s strong suit and chief draw. The original costumes by artist and designer Cedric Mizero follow as a close second.

Despite the film’s modest budget, the technological touches of the VFX enhance the aesthetic (I particularly enjoyed the aerial shots of the colorful pigeon called Frost taking wing to deliver important information). “Neptune Frost” challenges and frustrates, and often leaves one wishing for more clarity. But it is filled with poetry and it understands the importance of projecting an alternative to our reality. The resolute commitment to experimentation and the weblike structure of the hyperlinked world deliberately disregard some of the narrative conventions that may be expected by less adventurous viewers. Williams and Uzeyman embrace, and even depend upon, the glitches that position their movie as an original.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

“Tower” and “A Song for You: The Austin City Limits Story” director Keith Maitland returns with another engrossing and sharply made documentary in “Dear Mr. Brody,” the quirky tale of margarine heir Michael James Brody Jr. Not long after he turned 21, Brody grabbed his fifteen minutes of fame at the dawn of the 1970s when he publicly announced plans to give away his estimated 25 million dollar fortune  – in a variety of small and large amounts – to those who contacted him directly. Predictably, requests for cash poured in by the thousands. The contents of those letters, many of which are opened and read for the first time on camera in Maitland’s movie, run parallel to the whirlwind biography of the “hippie millionaire,” all of it woven together by the filmmaker in a moving mosaic of unrealized hopes and dreams.

At one point, prolific producer Ed Pressman (who met Brody in the early 70s in New York City) intended to transform Brody’s story into a feature film starring Richard Dreyfuss, but the project never came together. Other scripts by aspiring storytellers were written, but Pressman – who serves as an executive producer and appears in “Dear Mr. Brody – acquired about a dozen large boxes filled with an avalanche of Brody’s mail. Those North Pole-like messages sat in storage in Los Angeles until they were rediscovered by Pressman’s then-assistant Melissa Robyn Glassman. Glassman’s own curiosity and empathy are a major force behind the film’s central quest: locating letter writers, or their surviving family members, and recording their reactions to what they had to say all those decades ago.

“Dear Mr. Brody” supports multiple readings, but there is little question that Maitland gravitates to the earnest and sometimes heartbreaking personal reasons offered by many of the people who asked Brody for money. Brody himself is much harder to figure, even though Maitland spends plenty of time in conversation with members of the heir’s inner circle. Was the young philanthropist genuinely interested in using his resources to establish world peace or was he using the cash giveaway as a publicity stunt to attract the attention of the media and further his recording career and his fame? Was he a poor little rich boy or a con artist?

Maitland’s sense of graphic design and visual organization are chief pleasures of “Dear Mr. Brody.” The movie sparks with a rapid-fire cascade of images, including plentiful stock footage, perfectly grainy stagings and re-imaginings, a wealth of archival Brody news stories and appearances on TV (including a visit to Ed Sullivan’s show), colorful animations, and a multitude of close-ups of the handwriting, photographs, documents (which include everything from poems to hospital bills to invention schematics) and artwork that adorned both the inside and the outside of the envelopes delivered to Brody’s home or office.

Key players in the saga, led by the clear-eyed and contemplative Renee DuBois Brody – who married Michael after knowing him just a few weeks – provide helpful context and connect events of more than half a century ago to today by showing how the more things change, the more they stay the same. Incredibly, the original duration of Brody’s offer lasted less than two weeks before things fell apart, but not before he squeezed in a meeting with John Lennon and offered a joint to Walter Cronkite. Brody’s brief moment anticipates the instant celebrity cultivated today via the reach of the internet. The money, the privilege, and the power he enjoyed stands in contrast to the sadness of so many who hoped in vain that Brody would be true to his word.