Movie review by Greg Carlson

Made in part to capitalize on nostalgia for its source material, “Jem and the Holograms” is considerably less entertaining than many of the animated episodes of the original series that aired in first-run syndication from 1985 to 1988. Directed by Jon Chu, the live action “musical fantasy” borrows a number of familiar elements from the toy-based program that marketed Barbie-like fashion dolls and accessories, but the effort is wayward and misguided. Original series creator Christy Marx was left out of the project, and the resulting flop has already been pegged as one of the biggest wide-release box office failures of the year.

Marx’s “Jem” stories were hardly sophisticated, but they did present a female-centric universe in which smart and determined young women routinely faced ethical dilemmas and discovered opportunities to solve problems through cooperation and collaboration. The central premise, that the late father of Jerrica Benton has invented a pair of technologically advanced earrings allowing his daughter to cloak her identity and appear as either Jerrica or the “outrageous” frontwoman of Jem and the Holograms, is tweaked for the film. Additionally, the artificially intelligent Synergy is altered from a fairy godmother-esque computer console to S1N3RGY, a cutesy relative of EVE from “WALL-E.”

On the show, Jem and her bandmates spent as much time being threatened, imprisoned, sabotaged, cheated, and manipulated by the evil music producer Eric Raymond as they did climbing on stage in the nick of time to perform at fundraisers and charity benefit concerts. In the movie, Eric becomes Erica (Juliette Lewis), and Jerrica’s boyfriend Rio (Ryan Guzman) is clumsily reimagined as Erica’s son. Now it is Rio and not Jem to whom controlling interest in Starlight Music is bequeathed, a stupid move since it erases one of the most appealing aspects of the original series: Jem’s agency outside of her role as a pop star.

While the movie’s tunes and the game performance of star Aubrey Peeples in the title role combine for fleeting moments of entertainment, Chu’s flimsy alternate reality functions in a constant state of collapse. The idea that the identity of Jerrica/Jem would be so hard to keep secret – especially in the YouTube and Internet-saturated world depicted throughout the movie – doesn’t work at all. In the cartoon, it was Rio’s “love triangle” with Jerrica/Jem that triggered the privileged viewer satisfaction enjoyed by the pre-teens consuming the show, but that piece of the puzzle is omitted.

In an essay for Jezebel’s blog “The Muse,” Hillary Crosley Coker writes, “…‘Jem’ fans are so pissed that Scooter Braun, along with other bros Jason Blum, Bennett Schneir, Brian Goldner, Stephen Davis of Hasbro Studios and director John [sic] Chu are producing the film – it’s like a congressional hearing on birth control over there. Even the script’s writer is a dude, Ryan Landels.” If the boys accidentally got one thing right, it might be the absence of the mean girl versus good girl competition provided on the series by the Misfits (not to be confused with Glenn Danzig’s outfit). Jem’s shrill enemies do appear briefly in a post-credits sequence, possibly as a reminder for us to be grateful they weren’t a bigger part of the film.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Strictly for Spandau Ballet fans, “Soul Boys of the Western World” follows the familiar “Behind the Music” formula applicable to thousands of rock and roll stories. Long on hyperbole and much shorter on subtext and context, director George Hencken’s documentary relies on unfettered access to a trove of vintage film and video (for which archive producer Kate Griffiths deserves mention). Tracing the rise and fall of the North London quintet fronted by vocalist Tony Hadley but led by guitarist and chief songwriter Gary Kemp, the movie is a guaranteed nostalgia trip for 1980s pop enthusiasts keen to hear the details of “True.”

Making its way to digital platforms in 2015 following an American South by Southwest premiere last year, the movie is Hencken’s feature directorial debut, following significant producing experience and a longtime collaboration with Julien Temple. Hencken has her work cut out from the start, since Spandau Ballet’s history lacks the lurid criminality, extensive bad behavior, and self-destructive punch of colorful personalities like the Sex Pistols. Still, the group members emerge as working class underdogs turned into wealthy sex symbols in the blink of an eye, and that rags-to-riches part of the traditional rock fable can be breathless and exhilarating.

Hencken occasionally overstates Spandau Ballet’s importance, and while the group’s success on their home turf yielded ten U.K. Top 10 singles, the impact of the band in America was more modest. The film alludes several times to the quasi rivalry between Spandau Ballet and the much more music video savvy Duran Duran, but Hencken skips past any detailed exploration of the artists initially associated with New Romanticism and the Second British Invasion. A joint appearance in 1984 on the Mike Read-hosted game show “Pop Quiz” suggests that the members of Spandau Ballet and Duran Duran were friendly, even if the former can’t identify the lyrics of “Hungry Like the Wolf.”

Hencken fares better rocketing through the early sequences showing the Bowie-inspired rise of the Blitz Kids, those fashion forward, androgyny embracing nightclubbers who paid as much attention to their hair and makeup as they did to their music. But rather than embrace the oft-maligned champagne decadence and conspicuous consumption, Hencken cooks up montages straining to associate Spandau Ballet directly with a political consciousness opposed to Thatcherism. An entire sequence is devoted to “Through the Barricades,” a song alluding to the Northern Ireland conflict but reborn when the Berlin Wall came down – a far cry from the more comprehensively expressed social concerns of the Clash.

By the time Hencken arrives at the band’s breakup, the movie has long run out of steam, but an inevitable reunion sequence shifts from the acrimony and bitterness of the songwriting royalties lawsuit that saw Gary Kemp prevail over his former mates to the victory lap of a 2010 Isle of Wight gig when differences were set aside. Did deep and abiding friendship prevail or were money and middle age the chief factors in the reconciliation? Hencken opts for the former, but not everyone will be convinced. Either way, devoted Spandau Ballet listeners won’t mind.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

A carefully crafted homage to sensualist 1970s European exploitation cinema in general and the work of filmmaker Jess Franco in particular, Peter Strickland’s “The Duke of Burgundy” bestows many perverse pleasures upon its viewers. Beautifully designed, confidently structured, and filled with visual and aural luxuries, the story alights on the strained and idiosyncratic relationship between two insect researchers/enthusiasts whose intense study of lepidopterology and entomology approaches Nabokovian levels of poetic expressiveness, especially when combined with the BDSM being practiced by the lovers behind closed doors.

Our introduction to Evelyn (Chiara D’Anna) indicates that she serves as the submissive of Cynthia (Sidse Babett Knudsen), a stern taskmistress who metes out humiliations for the tiny infractions and mistakes committed when Evelyn falls short keeping house and polishing boots properly. Things are not what they seem, however, as Strickland reveals that Evelyn essentially “tops from the bottom,” scripting the exchanges that always lead to her sexual punishments. The more time we spend in the company of the two women, the more the director plays with the idea that Cynthia is a reluctant dominant who mostly, if not only, plays her role to please Evelyn.

Strickland uses the unorthodox particulars of Evelyn’s fantasies to examine the emotional connection between his two protagonists. The erotically charged novelties that constitute Evelyn’s desires – from the repetition of being scolded for failing to properly hand wash Cynthia’s undergarments to confinement in a locked trunk – are presented by Strickland with a great deal of restraint, deliberately leaving much to the imagination. Unlike many of Franco’s films, “The Duke of Burgundy” does not feature nudity. As Strickland goes deeper, he divulges a much stronger interest in the things we do for love rather than any of the “deviant” practices of Evelyn and Cynthia.

Whether one more closely identifies with Evelyn’s need to have her meticulously planned scenarios realized or with Cynthia’s frustration at the ongoing performance requirements and demands, Strickland manages to locate the most basic kinds of conflicts that can affect even the most vanilla partnerships. The movie’s deep respect for interpersonal universals contrasts with the ambiguity of the setting and time period. Like the vaguely anachronistic objects that flavor the films of Wes Anderson (though the filmmakers significantly differ in style), Strickland concocts a universe rife with antiquated technologies that suggest a fantasy space without a fixed year and out of step with 2015, even if the events shown could be happening now.

“The Duke of Burgundy” contains plenty of icebox talk to merit post-screening conversations or invite multiple viewings. While the primary interactions involve Evelyn and Cynthia, all of the supporting players in Strickland’s cast are female, from the curious specialist identified in the credits as “The Carpenter” to the entirety of the audience of academics who attend lectures on the moths and butterflies that serve as the film’s primary metaphoric motif (and provide the evocative title). The end credits, with the same sense of sly humor that courses through much of the film, delightfully lists a roll call of featured insects along with the human performers.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

A largely disappointing follow-up to his wild dissection of the methodology of Stanley Kubrick in “Room 237,” Rodney Ascher’s “The Nightmare” introduces an octet of bedeviled souls afflicted by sleep paralysis. Staging chilling reenactments that unfold like the lurid spine-tinglers on television’s “Unsolved Mysteries,” Ascher enjoys his role as deliberately neutral interlocutor, leaving it to the viewer to decide whether the filmmaker sees his subjects as worthy of genuine pity or eye-rolling derision. By the time we reach the end, the concept runs on fumes, frustrating anyone hoping for reasonable scientific verification of the awful and eerily similar experiences described.

Whether one is a lucid dreamer or dead-to-the-world slumberer, the particulars of sleep paralysis sound downright hair-raising: essentially trapped in a state of consciousness, victims find themselves completely unable to move so much as a muscle while buzzing electrical currents course through the nervous system and shadowy figures creep into view. Those unwelcome visitors, usually men and sometimes in hats, bear down on their petrified prey. Some have eyes that glow bright red. Occasionally, cats or catlike creatures akin to the incubus of Henry Fuseli’s iconic and best-known painting come calling. One poor guy is regularly attended by grinning aliens made of static.

But where is Robert Stack when you need him? Once Ascher finishes cross-cutting among the individual variations, one expects the film to shift into some kind of deeper or more careful consideration of these waking dreams. Instead, he eschews medical explanations, sleep physicians and researchers, tossing out pretty much any contextualizing counterpoint to the woeful tales of the damned. Some of the subjects hint at personal trauma that deserves some additional acknowledgment. Many viewers will simply dismiss the visions as byproducts of stress that emerge as manifestations of how a body might psychologically deal with emotional drain, threat, or demand.

Deep into the movie, Ascher nearly escapes the hole he has dug. Using clips from several films, including “A Nightmare on Elm Street,” “Communion,” and even “Natural Born Killers” the filmmaker sets up what appears to be an attempt to link the horrifying apparitions visited upon his interview subjects with similar motifs in popular culture. Unfortunately, the kooky, energetic approach to film clip illustrations that worked so well in “Room 237” stops before it can make an impact. Ascher refrains from exploring the obvious question: do those dealing with sleep paralysis construct their demons from the potent images created by storytellers, or are these archetypes made of something more primal?

Ascher’s strategy to conjure up the willies for his audience results in more fantods than frights. How come we never get to know any of the sufferers as fully functioning human beings with jobs and family members? Beyond the briefest mentions of non-nightmare mundanities, the director limits the content of the talking heads to detailed explications of the physically and mentally exhausting dread awaiting the unlucky when they could use a good night’s rest. Ghost stories around the campfire have always fueled our imagination, but skeptics will become impatient with “The Nightmare” long before it is time to wake up.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Bearing a handful of the stylistic touches of prominently credited producer Ulrich Seidl, Austrian horror-thriller “Goodnight Mommy” turns the screws of its nasty little bal masque until many viewers will avert their eyes. Written and directed by Seidl’s partner and frequent co-scripter Veronika Franz and Seidl’s nephew Severin Fiala, “Goodnight Mommy” – retitled from the original “Ich seh Ich seh” for English language markets – twists the home invasion premise of fellow Austrian Michael Haneke’s “Funny Games” into an oedipal pretzel. While not as unrelentingly bleak as Haneke’s vision, the abundantly creepy “Goodnight Mommy” easily gets under the skin.

When the heavily bandaged, post-surgical mother (Susanne Wuest) of pre-adolescent twins Lukas and Elias (played by brothers Lukas and Elias Schwarz) returns to their isolated retreat in the country, the boys begin to suspect that the woman is an imposter. Wisps of exposition answer a few questions but raise others as mama and her boys move swiftly toward irreversible dysfunction. The ensuing power struggle, during which the filmmakers shrewdly manipulate viewers to switch allegiances several times, escalates into a series of increasingly gruesome confrontations. Franz and Fiala observe from a chilly distance, content to let the beautiful 35mm photography of Martin Gschlacht play the leading role.

Some horror aficionados will compile a checklist of influences while watching “Goodnight Mommy,” noting the film’s sympathies and/or intersections with works like “Eyes without a Face,” “Audition,” “High Tension,” and “Borgman.” The ambitions of “Goodnight Mommy” are measurably smaller than these titles, however, especially in terms of the core relationship dynamics. As we yearn to know more about the curious bond of brother to brother and mother to sons, the directors get in their own way for the sake of a crucial plot point. A more thorough examination of character might pay greater dividends when we arrive at the combustible conclusion.

To great relief, the bloody rictus of “Goodnight Mommy” is attended by several instances of bleak humor, although individual mileage will vary depending on one’s tolerance for large cockroaches, lethally modified toys, and liberal applications of polymerizing adhesives (cat lovers deserve fair warning as well). In one terrific display of Hitchcockian Bomb Theory, two unwitting Red Cross volunteers come calling for a donation at a particularly delicate time. Franz and Fiala delight in the complication, showing a penchant for suspense while both mother and sons, for different reasons, sweat out every excruciating second of the visit.

For all of its beautifully austere compositions and long takes, “Goodnight Mommy” strains to back up the startling shifts between languorous privilege and lightning strike violence with any deeper exploration of identity, vanity, femininity, and class. The filmmakers are more successful delineating the remarkable contrast between the sleek modern angles of the family’s architecture-porn enclave and the natural world surrounding the compound. In one of the film’s most effective sequences, Lukas and Elias descend into a cavernous ossuary, crunching bone fragments with each footstep. The history of those mysterious skulls contained inside, like several other unsettling details in the narrative, go deliberately unexplained.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

As the most likely audience members of “Drunk Stoned Brilliant Dead,” hardcore National Lampoon fans of a certain age are the choirboys and choirgirls to filmmaker Douglas Tirola’s preacher. Tracing the history of the magazine and its prolific mediated spinoffs, Tirola’s film at least scratches the surface of the rise and fall of the Lampoon empire, even if a comprehensive account couldn’t possibly fit in a single feature movie. Cramming together dozens of interviews, hundreds of illustrations and photographs, and seemingly thousands of scattershot thoughts, the documentary works best as a rough introduction to the anything-goes, decidedly politically incorrect worldview of the publication’s key personnel – most notably cofounders Henry Beard and Doug Kenney.

Beyond Beard and Kenney, Tirola struggles to keep straight for the viewer the many players and their roles, prominently featuring obvious personalities like Michael O’Donoghue and John Belushi while leaving others unexplored. Many key participants are introduced, but the breadth-over-depth tactic results in fleeting glimpses that will leave many viewers craving details on the volatile relationship dynamics that resulted from the dangerous cocktail of youth, ambition, intelligence, lust, and the consumption of mountains of drugs and oceans of alcohol.

National Lampoon’s sensational art direction, realized through scores of parody advertisements (like the floating VW Beetle image referencing Chappaquiddick), cartoons and illustrations (including work by Arnold Roth and Neal Adams), and a parade of unforgettable cover images (from the scathing William Calley/Alfred E. Neuman mashup “What, My Lai?” to Ed Bluestone’s iconic “If You Don’t Buy This Magazine, We’ll Kill This Dog”) begs to be the subject of its very own feature documentary, but Tirola shows as much as possible, blasting through one eye-popping snapshot after another. Fortunately, Michael C. Gross, who did more than any single person to shape the look and sensibility of the magazine’s graphic identity, is on hand as an important guide.

The distance of time illuminates some of the magazine’s less savory white male personality traits, from brutal misogyny to ugly racism (even when the intention is for the jokes to be on racists). Disappointingly, Tirola elects to gloss over these issues when some critique on the philosophy and evolution of comedy is sorely needed. When, for example, Anne Beatts shares a joke about getting into comedy the way Catherine the Great got into politics, the moment passes without any of the important context framing the conditions faced by the women who participated in a culture notorious for its regressive attitudes and practices. A shrug and a wink are pretty cold comfort.

Not surprisingly, Tirola devotes a considerable amount of time to the exploration of National Lampoon’s widest “superstar” breakthrough: the unexpected success of “Animal House.” Many of the personalities associated with the movie discuss its genesis and burnish its legendary influence on an entire genre. The siren song of Hollywood dollars, not to mention the routine poaching of Lampoon talent by Lorne Michaels for “Saturday Night Live,” directly contributed to the decline and eventual demise of the magazine, and this partial explanation hovers over the later sections of the movie. The party and the story really end with the mysterious and much-debated death of Kenney, briefly memorialized on camera by friend Chevy Chase in a grim yet heartfelt lightning bolt of black comedy.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

In one sense, Paul Weitz’s “Grandma” is to Lily Tomlin what Wes Anderson’s “Rushmore” was to Bill Murray: a confirmation of the value, power, and wonders of an underutilized – and sometimes misused – screen treasure. While we can hope that Weitz’s film will open for Tomlin some of the same kinds of creative opportunities “Rushmore” presented to Murray, the current document will have to suffice as a late(r) career tour de force. As the acid-tongued lesbian poet Elle Reid, Tomlin unleashes a torrent of perfectly timed comic barbs, fully realizing a woman whose outward no-bullshit, no-prisoners attitude illuminates her internal frustrations, regrets, and doubts.

Weitz’s premise, that 18-year-old Sage (Julia Garner) turns to grandmother Elle for help in a race against the clock to fund an impending abortion, is as incredulous and farfetched as the film’s characterizations and interactions are immersive. We are asked to believe that Elle, a 70-something of some comfort and means, has impulsively shredded her credit cards, leaving her temporarily strapped for cash. Elle has also just broken up with Olivia (Judy Greer), their relationship presumably complicated by Elle’s continuing grief over the death of her longtime partner.

“Grandma” partially unfolds with a structure akin to Jim Jarmusch’s “Broken Flowers,” as Elle, hoping to put together some money, pays visits to a series of acquaintances. While all of these interactions hum with the unmistakable wit and intelligence of Tomlin’s comedic chops, Weitz folds in moments of melancholy and self-reflection, most notably in an exchange between Elle and Karl (Sam Elliott), a man still smarting from the pain caused by the dissolution of their relationship decades ago. The scene between Elliott and Tomlin is worth the price of admission: it is a sharply realized reunion a little sweet and plenty bitter.

Like “Obvious Child,” “Grandma” announces its pro-choice point of view early and often, but as Scott Foundas wrote, the film is, thematically speaking, “about choice in both the specific and the abstract — about the choices we make, for good and for ill, and how we come to feel about them through the prism of time.” It is fair to argue, however, that Weitz’s focus on Elle partially obscures the potential range of emotions and feelings experienced by Sage as the two make their way toward the latter’s appointment to terminate her pregnancy. Even so, few popular movies situate abortion outside the common narrative binary that revolves around the implications of continuing/not continuing a character’s pregnancy.

Weitz builds into the script the outward differences among women representing three generations – a reluctant stop at the office of Elle’s daughter and Sage’s mother Judy, played by Marcia Gay Harden, deepens our knowledge of the characters through the tense dynamics of their interpersonal relationships. Despite their conflicts, Elle, Judy, and Sage clearly care about one another. The victory lap, however, belongs to Tomlin, who has indicated in interviews the similarities and parallels between herself and the character she plays. Mark Olsen notes in his “L.A. Times” article that Tomlin as Elle “wears her own clothes and even drives her own car, a 1955 Dodge Royal Lancer she has owned since 1975.” A vehicle like that boasts an awful lot of personality, but it pales next to Tomlin.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Alex Winter’s documentary “Deep Web” joins an expanding list of features concerned with the present and future of Internet freedom, privacy, and the tensions between government encroachment and the evolving and seemingly limitless possibility of code. The film, which focuses on the case against Ross Ulbricht and the takedown of the Silk Road marketplace, balances esoteric tech-speak with the instantly recognizable but no less complex liberty-versus-regulation conundrum that shapes the underlying philosophical content of movies like “The Internet’s Own Boy,” “Citizenfour,” “We Steal Secrets: The Story of WikiLeaks,” and several others. Winter raises challenging questions en route to a thesis highly critical of United States’ handling of the Ulbricht investigation, but regardless of one’s position on the morality of the Silk Road, “Deep Web” explores some of the most important digital issues faced by our society.

“Wired” writer Andy Greenberg, credited as a consulting producer on the movie, appears on camera as an authority on the messy politics of the Silk Road and its mysterious puppet master(s), the cleverly monikered Dread Pirate Roberts. While Greenberg and Winter are hesitant to identify Ulbricht as the only person behind the DPR handle – suggesting that any number of people were, are, and will be associated with the role – “Deep Web” does acknowledge the prosecution’s smoking gun: at the time of his dramatic arrest at a branch of the San Francisco Public Library, Ulbricht’s unencrypted computer was logged in to Silk Road administration and contained financial records and other documents linking him directly to the site.

“Deep Web” spends significant energy on the vexing accusation that among his crimes, Ulbricht arranged six murders-for-hire, a bizarre rabbit hole that is dismissed by several of the film’s participants as ludicrous. Winter implies that the state’s inclusion of the assassination schemes sow associative doubt and guilt, even though the charges were ultimately omitted from Ulbricht’s indictment. For “Ars Technica,” Joe Mullin penned an essay excoriating Winter for his “obsequious” treatment of Ulbricht and his family members, who granted the filmmaker (so far) exclusive access, even though a number of other movies on the subject are supposedly in the works.

Running in parallel to the unfolding Ulbricht drama and the lurid black market intrigue of the Silk Road as a so-called eBay for illegal drugs are premises that have been explored more thoroughly in other contexts. One concerns the tenuous and perhaps illusory goal of anonymity and personal privacy for Internet users even as agents acting on behalf of “national security” seek to collect, collate, eavesdrop upon, and access any and all of our online footprints without warrant. Digital rights attorney Cindy Cohn and ACLU technologist Christopher Soghoian are just two of the important voices Winter includes in the movie, and both speakers allude to stakes much higher than the operation of a website principally known for anonymous drug deals.

Echoing observations made by David Simon and others in Eugene Jarecki’s “The House I Live In,” reform advocate Neil Franklin articulates the economic realities of an enormous machine wholly dependent on the dubious War on Drugs, essentially concurring with the radical notion that the buyer-seller accountability inherent to the architecture of an agora like the Silk Road does in fact result in the violence reduction prized by so many technology idealists. Franklin’s observations merely affirm the government’s financial incentive to continue the “fight.” To change policy would jeopardize the very livelihood of huge branches of law enforcement and the prison industry.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

As soon as 15-year-old Minnie Goetze announces “I had sex today” in Marielle Heller’s blistering adaptation of Phoebe Gloeckner’s hybrid prose/graphic novel “The Diary of a Teenage Girl,” one can sense all sorts of red alerts and red flags being raised by the (understandably) cautious and concerned. Heller, best known as an actor but now making a supremely confident debut as writer-director, knows this material: she previously collaborated on a successful stage version of the story, playing Minnie – and earning the trust of Gloeckner. In the film, Minnie is brought to vivid life by Bel Powley in an anchoring, heartbreaking performance that ranks among the year’s finest.

The movie is so aligned with its heroine’s worldview, nearly every adult, including Minnie’s troubled, narcissistic mom Charlotte (Kristen Wiig), appears to operate in some kind of responsibility-free parallel universe. Heller’s frankness, combined with the lurid subject matter, will remind some viewers of any number of stories examining the damage of age-inappropriate lust, but the sensibility of female identification is closer to “An Education” than “Lolita.” While the contemporary, real-world impulse is so often to scrutinize and shame, Heller forges her own path. As Rebecca Keegan notes, “It’s hard to overstate what a radical idea it is to show a teenage girl enjoying sex in a movie” (especially without being utterly destroyed or scarred for life as a consequence of that pleasure).

While Heller scales back some of the darkest, grimmest content from Gloeckner’s book, the primary romantic relationship concerns the young Minnie and her mother’s opportunistic, predatory boyfriend Monroe (Alexander Skarsgard), a man old enough to be Minnie’s father. While the ongoing behavior between the two is statutory rape, Minnie’s point of view is the one honored by the filmmaker, lining the film with a level of complexity that recognizes a problematic double standard when compared to bildungsroman featuring the sexual awakenings and initiations of similarly aged male protagonists.

A sizable number of critics have argued that Heller deliberately withholds judgment, allowing viewers to make determinations about the agency of a young person surrounded by a culture of permissiveness. While the 1976 San Francisco setting arguably shields particular strains of critique via the period mythology of the city’s most liberal impulses, the director unfailingly renders Minnie as subject and not object. Manohla Dargis writes, “…it’s important that the one time you see Minnie fully naked is when she’s alone with her body and thoughts in her bedroom, gazing into a mirror,” going on to point out that Heller does not light or frame Minnie “for the viewer’s erotic contemplation.”

Minnie is an aspiring artist, and one of the greatest pleasures in “The Diary of a Teenage Girl” is the integration of lovely animated imagery that sometimes takes over the entire screen and sometimes shares space with the tangible objects photographed by Brandon Trost. Created by Sara Gunnarsdottir, the animation brings to life the contents of Minnie’s sketchbook and imagination, both of which draw inspiration from the distinctive illustrations of underground comics legend Aline Kominsky. The spirit of Kominsky inhabits the movie as a crucial symbol of stability and comfort to Minnie, and by extension, the audience. Whenever Kominsky shows up, it feels like everything will be OK.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Veteran journalist and hip-hop historian Sacha Jenkins delivers his first feature length documentary with “Fresh Dressed,” a chronological overview of urban fashion that closely parallels the music scene that rocketed from the New York underground to a global phenomenon packaged by mainstream media conglomerates. Blending a dizzying array of rappers, players and tastemakers with vibrant archival footage and photographs of evolving trends, “Fresh Dressed” struggles to cover too much territory, despite its apparent desire to be comprehensive. Any number of segments, sections, and personalities – from collectors obsessed with sneakers to the artistry of entrepreneurs like King Phade/Shirt Kings and the legendary Dapper Dan – might merit an entire movie.

Jenkins opens the film with a promising lesson that starts with the customization of “cut sleeves” – the denim jean jackets worn over black leather. The look was favored by gang and crew members inspired, according to interviewee Lorine Padilla, by “Easy Rider.” Adorned with hand-cut lettering, bead and studwork, graphic insignias, and assorted patches, the attire simultaneously announced one’s affiliation and one’s sense of individuality. From there, the viewer receives a primer on signature style items like Adidas with fat, starched laces to Kangols to Cazal eyewear that could, according to folks like designer April Walker, instantly identify one’s borough of residence.

“Fresh Dressed” shifts away from the early years of the 70s and 80s just when it seems to be warming up, focusing instead on the emergence of streetwear brands like Cross Colours that capitalized on trends and fads like super baggy, oversized silhouettes. The marketing relationship between Cross Colours and popular television shows like “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” and “In Living Color” demonstrates the impact of mass media on hip-hop clothing and vice versa, but Jenkins opts to leave out the more controversial discussion on aspects of appropriation when affluent, suburban white kids started adopting looks seen on “Yo! MTV Raps.”

One of the film’s most glaring shortcomings is the pronounced lack of focus on women, both in terms of designers and fashionistas. Walker offers the most complete perspective as one of the movie’s only significant female interview subjects, and a few shout-outs are made to trendsetters like TLC and Kimora Lee Simmons, but the interviews and B-roll overwhelmingly feature men talking about other men. Jenkins certainly could have spent more quality time sharing the stories of the women who have been every bit as influential as the fellows.

The last half of the movie fails to match the excitement of the first, delving into the rise of vanity labels like Sean John that hastened the decline of powerhouses like FUBU and Karl Kani. A photomontage reminds viewers that practically every artist, from Eminem to the Wu-Tang Clan, launched personal lines that saturated an already crowded marketplace. Unlike Sean John, the hastily greenlit apparel privileged profit over earnest innovation and creativity, evaporating when sales tanked. Now that the Internet can communicate emerging style faster than the older media it continues to supplant, designers face the double-edged sword that combines immediacy with accelerated obsolescence, keeping a new generation of wannabe moguls on their toes.