Movie review by Greg Carlson

Janicza Bravo’s “Zola” — titled onscreen as “@Zola” or “@zola” depending on your favorite style guide — is the curious story by Aziah “Zola” Wells candidly recounting a partly truthful and partly embellished autobiographical sex trafficking road trip odyssey she unloaded as a series of 148 tweets in the fall of 2015. The thread, which Wells took down twice before getting the desired traction, became a Twitterverse cause célèbre. Movie adaptation plans quickly followed. By early 2016, James Franco was identified as the director before sexual misconduct allegations torpedoed that potential iteration of the project.

Franco’s exit and Bravo’s entrance turned out to be the greatest gift Wells could have imagined, as “Zola” took shape as an audacious and original feat of personal storytelling and directorial bravado almost unimaginable from any studio. Crafting a script with Jeremy O. Harris, Bravo draws in part from David Kushner’s “Rolling Stone” summary titled “Zola Tells All: The Real Story Behind the Greatest Stripper Saga Ever Tweeted.” The result is a whiplash catalog of increasingly wild situations and dizzy but calculated shifts in tone. Comedy, tragedy, horror, and parody take turns at the wheel.

Despite its outward appearances and its stylistic kinship to the Florida trash culture milieu of Harmony Korine’s “Spring Breakers” and “The Beach Bum,” “Zola” communicates a series of sophisticated ideas through its use of voiceover narration, nonverbal reactions, and spoken dialogue of restaurant server and part-time exotic dancer Zola (Taylour Paige, fantastic). With one notable exception, the narrative is filtered through the watchful, skeptical consciousness of a unique voice we are invited to respect and trust.

After a friendly if sketchy customer named Stefani (Riley Keough) invites Zola to join her on the Detroit to Tampa adventure that allows Bravo to play with the tropes of first the road trip and then the mala noche, Zola navigates a treacherous series of in-over-her-head episodes when the group’s two male travel companions are exposed for their truer selves: “roommate” X (Colman Domingo) is Stefani’s malevolent pimp and boyfriend Derrek (Nicholas Braun) is an incompetent danger-magnet apparently incapable of making a sound decision.

With Bravo’s guidance, Keough navigates the minefield of grotesque stereotype and cultural appropriation suggested by the African American Vernacular English spoken by “white bitch” Stefani. But “Zola” is a star-making opportunity that Paige owns with every raised eyebrow and skeptical look. Zola is confident and self-assured, but Paige also expresses her fear, nervousness, and vulnerability. The heavy-duty misogyny of coercion, abuse, and assault is amplified by Bravo’s unsettling comic gloss. And the presence of casual, everyday racism, as glimpsed through vehicle windows and hovering at the edge of the frame, creeps close in a grim display of thematic anamorphosis.

At one point, composer Mica Levi’s harp glissandos nod directly to Bernard Herrmann’s “Taxi Driver” score, and the homage is just one of many surprises that propel the film to multiple-view territory. Bravo’s many tasty touches, including the protean speaking voice of X, a slideshow montage of the genitalia of Stefani’s clientele, a heaven-sent strip club prayer circle, the bouncing basketball beat outside the hotel room, and the conspiratorial social media dispatches (“Y’all wanna hear a story about…”) accompanied by those familiar chirps and whooshes, identify the filmmaker as a genuine talent.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

If the accolades bestowed on Ahmir Khalib “Questlove” Thompson’s directorial debut as feature documentary filmmaker are any indication, we are on the cusp of a fresh “Summer of Soul” in the hot months of 2021. Claiming both Grand Jury and Audience Award prizes following its premiere at the Sundance Film Festival, Questlove’s beautifully constructed movie is a history lesson and a celebration. Something akin to the unearthing of a time capsule, the film presents the sights, sounds, and memories of the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival, a series of concerts staged over a six-week period at Marcus Garvey Park (then called Mount Morris Park) in New York.

Featuring thrilling live sets by a to-die-for lineup including Nina Simone, Sly and the Family Stone, Stevie Wonder, B.B. King, Gladys Knight & the Pips, Max Roach, the Staple Singers, Mahalia Jackson, the 5th Dimension, David Ruffin, and many others, the concerts have been called the Black Woodstock for their emphasis on African American pride and popular culture. Despite capturing the shows, producer Hal Tulchin never transformed the material into a theatrically-released concert film or films (WNEW Channel 5 did air a series of specials at the time). Incredibly, the treasure trove sat in a basement until Questlove made it his mission.

Questlove assembles the wide range of elements with the skill of a seasoned scholar and practitioner, blending songs with memories in a master mix made especially challenging given the staggering amount of talent and the desire to tell the accompanying story. Several interviews and articles have addressed the Roots co-founder’s bona fides as musicologist, DJ, percussionist, historian, record producer, songwriter, and superfan. The full title of the movie, “Summer of Soul (…Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised),” alludes to the messages of pride and power sparking and crackling through the music.

Many of the interview subjects contextualize 1969 as an inflection point in Black history, citing the recent changes and upheavals of the American civil rights movement as catalyst and prologue. The Black Power movement — still in its ascendance at the time of the Harlem Cultural Festival — informs the attitudes of the performers on the stage and the citizens in the audience. Fifty years have elapsed in a blink. And yet, “Summer of Soul” is one of those instantly recognizable artifacts armored in timelessness. True, the “creamsicle” getups of the 5th Dimension all but shout their date and time stamp, but plenty of other togs would be fashion-forward today.

Musa Jackson, who attended as a boy, describes the general atmosphere, recalling the beautiful women and beautiful men (“It was like seeing royalty”). He paints a vivid picture of a scene familiar to all who love the adrenaline rush of outdoor concerts: “It was the ultimate Black barbecue. And then you start to hear music and someone speaking. And you knew it was something bigger.” “Summer of Soul” is indeed something bigger. Fans of rock, R&B, soul, funk, pop, gospel, and jazz will now be able to comb through the songs to study highlights and locate new favorites.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

On the heels of criticism for defending Lin-Manuel Miranda and “In the Heights” against accusations of erasure and colorism, legendary stage and screen talent Rita Moreno made an apology of her own just this week. In part, her statement read “…celebration for some is lament for others.” That sentiment also readily applies as one of the guiding themes of filmmaker Mariem Perez Riera’s “Rita Moreno: Just a Girl Who Decided to Go for It.” Following a world premiere as part of the 2021 Sundance Film Festival, the documentary makes a stop in theaters before a broadcast date in the thirty-fifth season of “American Masters” on PBS.

Moreno, an indefatigable 89 years old, is a worthy subject for a full-length entertainment industry/performing artist biography. Joining similar retrospectives like Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady’s “Norman Lear: Just Another Version of You” and Laurent Bouzereau’s “Natalie Wood: What Remains Behind,” Perez Riera’s film draws from a seven-decade archive of material, new interviews, and the presence and full participation of Moreno — outspoken, candid, and direct, even if the veteran celebrity is always “on” when the cameras are around.

Longtime appreciators of Moreno already know that she is a member of the elite company who can claim status as an EGOT winner. Perez Riera enlists fellow Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony recipient Whoopi Goldberg as one of several on-camera interview subjects attesting to Moreno’s achievement, but Goldberg’s introspection communicates the wisdom of humility: she notes simply that Moreno just put in the work, grinding away in a tough business. Perez Riera is acutely aware that Moreno’s status as a Puerto Rican made that journey even more challenging — one of the film’s most eye-opening sections shows Moreno in thankless part after thankless part, like the “exotic” indigenous “island girl” of indeterminate accent in dated fare like “Pagan Love Song” and “Seven Cities of Gold.”

The objectification of Moreno would not be limited to the roles she played in the movies. Perez Riera addresses the grim realities of a sexist and racist system controlled by white men accustomed to massive reserves of power and getting their way all the time. Moreno, whose early public devotion to civil rights and social activism indicated yet another arena in which she operated in the vanguard, doesn’t blink speaking truth to power. She calls out the disgusting behavior of people like Harry Cohn. She speaks about being raped by her own agent. She had an abortion after becoming pregnant by Marlon Brando.

With the exception of Rita Hayworth, whose ethnicity was essentially hidden as her star persona was cultivated by studio handlers, Moreno had virtually no women of color as screen role models at the time she began working in Hollywood. Her unforgettable, Academy Award-winning performance as Anita in “West Side Story” marked a significant milestone, but high-profile offers did not follow. Moreno confirms that she received plenty of scripts involving street gangs and little else. “Just a Girl…” effectively handles the complexity of “West Side Story,” confronting with eloquence the way a text can be simultaneously empowering and problematic.

Perez Riera strikes the right balance of “then-and-now” throughout the fast-moving 90-minute running time. In a career that covers “Singin’ in the Rain” to “The Electric Company” and “The King and I” to “The Muppet Show” and “Oz,” Moreno could be the subject of a multipart series (the way in which Moreno digs into her tumultuous relationship with Brando is catnip; the anecdote she provides about a key scene in “The Night of the Following Day,” like all good stories, leaves you wanting more). There is no question that popular media still has miles to go toward inclusiveness and representation, but thanks to Perez Riera’s strong storytelling, we can appreciate Rita Moreno’s skill, determination, and perseverance. She is a gift.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Edgar Wright — the subject of his own cult of fandom — knows a thing or two about obsessive devotion to odds and ends of pop culture. And with “The Sparks Brothers,” the filmmaker’s first feature-length foray into nonfiction, Wright applies the same attention to detail and supercharged storytelling that he brings to his fiction worlds. Built to impress longtime listeners and new ears alike, Wright’s love letter to Ron and Russell Mael — the Southern California brothers whose idiosyncratic and influential records have been part of the art pop landscape for half a century (!) — complements the sensibilities of the masterminds behind glories like “Kimono My House” and “Angst in My Pants.”

Like the famous quotation (often attributed to Brian Eno) that “not a lot of people bought the first Velvet Underground album, but everyone who did started a band,” Sparks has inspired a wide variety of recording artists who gained greater levels of fame and fortune. From the Sex Pistols to Bjork, Sonic Youth to Duran Duran, Joy Division to the Human League, Ween to Weird Al, and Beck to Depeche Mode, generations of performers fell under the spell of the Mael blend of wickedly arch wordplay and shimmering, rhythmic synth lines.

Wright lines up a murderer’s row of effusive admirers eager and willing to describe the ways in which Sparks blew minds and broke hearts. Jane Wiedlin (hail “Cool Places”), Flea, Jason Schwartzman, Alex Kapranos, and dozens of others contribute in the talking head department, and the anecdotes shared are as delightful and funny as “The Number One Song in Heaven” or “Thank God It’s Not Christmas.” My own first Sparks experience was hearing “Eaten by the Monster of Love” underscoring a classic scene in “Valley Girl,” which I first saw on a tiny television that was temporarily allowed in my junior high bedroom because I was sick and out of school for a few days.

Throughout the film, Wright leans heavily on the band’s massive collection of archival audio and video to drive the epic tale forward. The striking visuals designed by the Maels — from album covers to television appearances — radiate from the distinctive looks cultivated by Ron and Russell. Ron’s small brush mustache evokes both Chaplin and Hitler, a point which Wright appropriately explores alongside the heartthrob curls and blistering, androgynous falsetto of Russell. The distinctive stage presence of the pair was captured on “American Bandstand” and “Don Kirshner’s Rock Concert” for thousands of kids who never had the opportunity to see them live.

Sparks also made music videos before MTV was a thing, and Wright takes obvious joy uncorking so many clips of their innovative and expressive short films. Applying the weird science of collage and cut-out animation and the puppet and stop-motion work of Joseph Wallace, who directed the lovely “Edith Piaf (Said It Better Than Me)” for Sparks in 2017, Wright evangelizes as much as possible throughout the film’s generous 140 minute running time. Even though Ron and Russell never quite achieved the complete mainstream success or superstardom they deserved, their legendary status has long been cemented by fierce individuality, bold experimentation, and artistic integrity.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Horror hounds and those who — like me — are attracted to movies about movies will appreciate “Censor,” an intriguing but uneven period piece. The feature debut of director and co-writer Prano Bailey-Bond, the film is set initially within the drab offices of the group of professionals responsible for assigning film ratings during the 1980s “video nasty” phenomenon in Great Britain. Despite the potential to showcase outrageous practical effects and the onscreen depiction of blunt-force trauma and tool-assisted mayhem in tribute to artifacts like “The Driller Killer” and “I Spit on Your Grave,” Bailey-Bond demonstrates a greater interest in the psychological dimensions of her protagonist’s crucible.

Niamh Algar plays buttoned-up Enid Baines, a smart and thoughtful censor who takes seriously the work of determining what violence and gore might be left in place before any given movie to which she has been assigned can be “passed” and made legally available for public consumption. Beyond the initial act, Bailey-Bond does not explore the British Board of Film Censors (later British Board of Film Classification) and the evolution of low-budget, independent horror and exploitation moviemaking that triggered concern in the first place. “Censor” nods to the video rental store culture of the era but does not indulge it or embrace it.

Instead, the tantalizing possibility of a direct personal connection to Enid — she starts to wonder whether a performer in a sadistic film under review could be her missing sister — aligns the movie with tropes concerning the main character’s grip on reality. Enid’s willingness to go down that rabbit hole is reminiscent in a certain way of Harry Caul in “The Conversation.” “Censor” is nowhere near as good or as satisfying as Coppola’s beloved film, but both movies feast on personal second-guessing, paranoia, and the possibility of real danger. They also share an affection for analog technology and the power of interpreting and/or misinterpreting recordings of what we think we see and hear.

Enid might be akin to a Final Girl as she navigates her personal downward spiral and descends deep into the mystery of the film within the film (called “Don’t Go in the Church” with spot-on video nasty authenticity). And Bailey-Bond handles with confidence a number of solid scenes, including a creepy encounter with an odious and sleazy producer played with relish by Michael Smiley. Also effective is the tension between Enid and her grieving parents. The painful decision to get on with their lives by finally taking the step to have their long-departed child declared legally dead is a sobering reality check for the skeptical and frustrated Enid.

There is enough dark humor in “Censor” to avoid arguments that the filmmaker is taking it all too seriously, but Bailey-Bond carefully modulates the tone to achieve her desired outcome, which has led some to complain that there isn’t enough splatter to capitalize on the premise. Had “Censor” managed both Enid’s personal nightmare and wrestled more deliberately with some of the moral questions posed by the title, viewers might have been inclined to initiate conversations about the horror genre’s traditions of transgression.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Theo Anthony’s thought-provoking Sundance Special Jury Award prizewinner “All Light, Everywhere” ponders a great many questions joining past and present, perception and reality, and beholder and beheld. Among its fascinating explorations is the link between the development of photographic processes and their application in the arenas of warfare and policing. Anthony contemplates the ways in which the design of the camera and the gun share several disturbing traits — extending well beyond the basic idea that both machines “shoot” when a trigger is engaged.

Constructed as a highly intelligent, highly inquisitive stream-of-consciousness personal essay, “All Light Everywhere” succeeds on the basis of Anthony’s editorial choices; the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, which by themselves constitute several chapters or mini-documentaries capable of dropping one’s jaw. If Anthony’s second feature can be distilled to a single penetrating thesis question, it has something to do with the “truth” of the photographed image. We have long been taught to accept the shaky premise that the camera records and transposes the objectively “real.”

Anthony is not the first theorist to shred that assumption, but the reason that “All Light, Everywhere” merits careful attention has much to do with the film’s timeliness. As America continues to be choked by routine gun violence and murders of citizens by the very police officers sworn to protect and serve them, the film upends the argument that body cameras and the data they capture benefit and safeguard the taxpayer by holding law enforcement to some degree of accountability.

A visit to Arizona-based Axon Enterprise, Inc. supplies one of the movie’s meatiest segments. Rebranded from TASER International, Inc. (the original acronym referenced Tom Swift’s Electric Rifle as described in a 1911 novel for young adults), Axon not only manufactures and markets electroshock weapons and user-worn cameras, it has expanded into the “cloud-based digital evidence management system” Evidence.com, a rather ominous repository of the images captured by organizations outfitted with Axon cameras. The implications of this technology-driven, information-based phenomenon and the inevitability of the perpetuation of unchecked racist and classist institutional power send an icy chill up the spine.

Anthony’s level of access to Axon, as seen through the slick and eager salesmanship of executive Steve Tuttle, at first seems almost too good to be true. Why, we wonder, would this company be so willing to open its doors to a filmmaker whose point of view is almost certain to oppose Axon’s well-practiced rhetorical jargon? The answer may have to do with Axon’s commanding perch within the industry and its Orwellian doublespeak concerning a definition of “transparency” quite some distance away from the objectivity implied by the use of the word.

“All Light, Everywhere” is itself an artifact of our culture of observation and monitoring — something not lost on Anthony as his crew attends a Baltimore community meeting in which Ross McNutt from Persistent Surveillance Systems attempts to sell understandably skeptical neighbors on the “value” of constant aerial recordings of the streets below. Anthony integrates these contemporary illustrations with doses of history, from motion studies to military pigeons to mug shots, that connect the dots with almost cosmic sweep.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Another movie long-delayed by the pandemic, “Saint Maud” can finally be viewed on Amazon Prime and several other online outlets (the world premiere took place a lifetime ago at the 2019 Toronto International Film Festival). Writer-director Rose Glass makes a convincing feature debut with an unsettling study of a personal carer who obsessively ministers — in every sense of the word — to a professional dancer ravaged by cancer. The subject matter is pitch black, but Glass is smart enough not to take herself too seriously. “Saint Maud” is as funny as it is grim.

“Saint Maud” has been favorably compared to an impressive roster of memorable films both old and new, including “Carrie,” “Under the Skin,” “The Witch,” “Persona,” “Taxi Driver,” and “The Exorcist.” Parallels to these movies and several others are most certainly present, even if “Saint Maud” is not nearly as strong or as brilliant as its direct and indirect inspirations. As Katie/Maud, Morfydd Clark immediately conveys a blend of self-disciplined piety and roiling inner conflict that links her to characters as far apart as Carrie White and Travis Bickle. Her willingness to veer from the truth — like the name change to distance herself from a recent work-related catastrophe — signals deeper trouble.

Glass asks the audience to wonder about the details that derailed Maud’s previous job and brought her so quickly to an intense devotion to Roman Catholicism. The young woman bonds with new patient Amanda Kohl, played by the reliably great Jennifer Ehle, and the change in venue from institution to private home intensifies the anxiousness and foreboding. Glass increasingly toys with the line separating the real from the supernatural, and when we see or hear things — does that creepy voice that speaks to Maud in Welsh come from God or the Devil? — we still find room to empathize with our lonely and desperate protagonist.

Sure, “Saint Maud” can be called a horror film, but it is equally a psychological drama that gets a lot of mileage from a tried and true trope: the shifting power dynamics in a superior/subordinate relationship. Maud is Amanda’s nurse and also Amanda’s employee. And yet, Amanda’s diminished physical condition means that Maud can wield control in many situations. Glass manipulates the audience by withholding the concrete and emphasizing the abstract. To what extent does Maud dream about the kind of life Amanda once enjoyed as a vibrant performing artist? Are Maud’s acts of self-flagellation for penitence or sexual gratification?

Yet another link to modern pop culture is the presence of William Blake, and particularly Blake’s image “The Great Red Dragon and the Woman Clothed in Sun.” Like Francis Dolarhyde in the Thomas Harris novel “Red Dragon” (and its cinematic adaptations), Maud experiences a kind of inspirational, transcendent ecstasy upon encountering Blake’s hallucinatory interpretation of events described in the Book of Revelation. The many contrasts probed in “Saint Maud” — good and evil, belief and atheism, celibacy and liberation — are starkly compared and contrasted in the differences between Maud and Amanda. Each woman imagines she might be able to build a persuasive argument. Each woman underestimates the other.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Hard to say whether non-cinephiles will be interested enough to watch a feature-length documentary about a movie critic, but Rob Garver’s “What She Said: The Art of Pauline Kael” is a worthwhile biography of a fascinating life led with purpose and conviction. Of course, the film-obsessed won’t need to be told twice — Kael’s passionate, singular voice inspired moviemakers and movie viewers for decades. If Roger Ebert is the best-known American film critic of the last century, then Kael is certainly the most influential.

Garver draws heavily from the career highs and lows detailed in the late Brian Kellow’s top-notch 2011 book “Pauline Kael: A Life in the Dark,” and that’s more than enough to provide the film with a complete supply of devilishly entertaining anecdotes and a solid structure. While it may seem impossible in the fractured landscape of today’s internet for one writer to wield enough power to make a film’s fortunes, Kael’s impact astonishes.

The section on “Last Tango in Paris” — in the running with “Bonnie and Clyde” and “Nashville” as her most famous rave (see her notes on “The Sound of Music,” “2001: A Space Odyssey,” “Blade Runner,” and “Shoah” for the flipside) — illustrates the extent to which Kael’s enthusiasm could lift a movie’s commercial prospects. Her full “Last Tango” review, in which she links Bertolucci’s controversial film to the “hypnotic excitement” of Stravinsky’s “The Rite of Spring,” was used as the advertising campaign in a two-page New York Times Sunday spread.

Molly Haskell, who happened to be married to Kael rival Andrew Sarris, wonders aloud why Pauline would defend a movie that was so “artificial, forced, calculated, ugly, [and] unerotic.” Some have accused Garver of crafting a hagiography, but they miss one of the film’s most thrilling dimensions: the presence of those with whom Kael disagreed and those she stabbed with the razor-sharp tip of her poison-dipped pen. The clip in which David Lean admits to having his confidence shaken by Kael’s cruelty is poignant, no matter what you think of “Lawrence of Arabia.”

Plenty of directors and stars feared Kael’s reactions to their movies, and Garver includes an entertaining montage of personal letters written (by the likes of Steven Spielberg, Jessica Lange, Kevin Bacon, Carol Burnett, and many others) in the hope of maintaining favor or just making a connection with the fierce cinema savant. The titles of her books — “I Lost It at the Movies,” “Kiss Kiss Bang Bang,” “When the Lights Go Down” — cheekily allude to the seductive, sexual pull offered by the filmgoing experience. How many of us studied those collections carefully and closely, along with each must-read piece in The New Yorker?

Even though Garver is faced with the challenging task of balancing the personal components of Kael’s life and the professional examination of her peculiar vision for the cinema, he finds a rhythm and settles into it. Kael’s movie-mad minions will gobble up the latter, made all the more tantalizing by dozens of scenes from the films she championed or throttled. There are plenty of talking heads, including Kael’s eloquent and indispensable daughter Gina James, but “What She Said” is most alive and electrifying when Garver uses old radio and television clips of the critic speaking for herself.