Movie review by Greg Carlson

Laurel Parmet’s feature directorial debut “The Starling Girl” arrives on demand following a Sundance Film Festival premiere and a short theatrical window via Bleecker Street. Finding fresh ways to depict coming-of-age stories involving matters of socially taboo topics is a tall order, but Parmet handles the story of a 17-year-old girl and her predatory youth minister with a strong sense of emotional authenticity. Eliza Scanlen anchors the drama as Jem Starling, the eldest daughter in a close-knit family of Christian fundamentalists in rural Kentucky. Jem’s growth into adulthood is complicated by the intersection of her own intellectual curiosity and the expectations of her deeply religious family.

Many – if not most – of the individual conflicts cover familiar genre territory. Parmet shrewdly sticks to Jem’s point of view, a strategy that makes room for viewers to squirm at the predictable march toward wrongdoing without losing sympathy for the protagonist. As Owen Taylor, the charismatic heir to church leadership, Lewis Pullman seizes the opportunity to illustrate the privileges of his position within the patriarchal structure of the community to which he has just returned from missionary work in Puerto Rico. That separation from the otherwise overwhelming insularity of Jem’s tightly monitored and controlled world represents just the kind of “exotic” fuel to fire her imagination.

Parmet has spoken about the ways in which “The Starling Girl” was partially inspired by her own teenage experience with an older man. Later, while doing research for another project, the filmmaker spent time with some women from a patriarchal church, turning her shock at their submissive beliefs into a thoughtful and considered examination of the commonalities she shared with them. The resulting sympathy for characters more typically depicted in the movies as backwards and out of touch with reality enriches the viewing experience. Ultimately, Parmet makes clear that the gender-based control of Jem by her fellow parishioners corresponds to the way that society in general shames young women for autonomous self-expression – sexual and otherwise.

In addition to the terrific and convincing work by Scanlen and Pullman, the rest of the supporting cast members flesh out vivid characterizations no matter how small the role. Away from the ever-building erotic tension and temptations of the relationship Jem develops with Owen, Parmet presents robust subplots that sharply explicate Jem’s internal struggles. Parentally-arranged “courtship” pairs the reluctant Jem with Owen’s little brother Ben (Austin Abrams). The contrast between the siblings could not be more obvious, both for Jem and the viewer.

Deliberate or not, Parmet makes clear distinctions between Jem’s interactions with the men around her and the more caustic and judgmental women who almost seem to take pleasure in draining the joy from Jem’s life (she is humiliated for wearing a shirt that isn’t opaque enough to fully conceal her bra and the choreography she introduces to her fellow praise dancers is deemed too “prideful”). One of the filmmaker’s smart decisions is to fill out the history of Jem’s father Paul (Jimmi Simpson), whose depression and reliance on alcohol are exacerbated by the death of a friend with whom he played in a band years ago. Not surprisingly, it is the more realistic past of Paul and not the fantasy of Owen that provides Jem with a more grounded vision of a life outside the suffocating world she inhabits.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Writer-director Celine Song’s feature debut “Past Lives” premiered to much acclaim at the Sundance Film Festival in January. Beautifully photographed by Shabier Kirchner on 35mm film, the thoughtful and contemplative drama might be as destined for award season accolades as the star-crossed childhood sweethearts are for paths that twine together and grow apart over the course of the near quarter-century explored in the narrative. Song’s powerful imagination and confident command of pace and rhythm suggest the work of a veteran filmmaker with decades of experience. One of the year’s best films – a deeply rewarding journey of love and friendship – “Past Lives” is not to be missed.

An absolutely phenomenal Greta Lee plays Na Young, a South Korea-born writer whose family moved to Toronto when she wasn’t quite a teenager. Known now as Nora, she reconnects with Hae Sung (Teo Yoo) after discovering that her cherished classmate had reached out in search of her through a Facebook post. Twelve years have passed, but Nora and Hae Sung reconnect using Skype. Now living in New York City and committed to developing her craft, Nora can’t accept Hae Sung’s invitation to travel to see him. She proposes he visit her, but his own plans include imminent language study in China.

Choices made, Nora soon meets and marries Arthur (John Magaro), even if Hae Sung never fades from her imagination. The particularities of the protagonist’s unique association to each man are developed by the director through the sharp script, which never resorts to duplicity or deceit to manufacture or escalate conflict. Instead, the honesty cuts like a scalpel, especially when Hae Sung finally makes it to America and all three key players expose raw vulnerabilities in public and in private. Arthur and Hae Sung each know a part of Nora inaccessible to the other.

Like Davy Chou’s equally moving “Return to Seoul,” “Past Lives” offers a detailed and in-depth consideration of Korean identity through personal connections inside and outside the country. Both films were, in part, based on incidents from the real lives of their creators. And both movies feature world-class performances from the lead actors. But hidden in plain sight next to those gorgeously realized humans are the notions of time and of place. Relocation, displacement, and the complexities of rootedness (and its lack) give us much to consider beyond the action, such as it is.

While the triangle and loving-the-one-you’re-with practicalities pay homage to “Casablanca,” “Past Lives” differs from the legendary Oscar-winner in several ways. Unlike Rick and Ilsa, Nora and Hae Sung never completely know one another as lovers. At least not physically. Song cinematically renders the longing, the aching, and the yearning with the exquisite torture of memorable moments in “The Remains of the Day,” “In the Mood for Love,” and “Brief Encounter,” to name a few. The cycles of twelve years (depicting the ages of 12, 24, and 36) that Song uses to structure the story focus viewer attention on thematic questions of roads not taken just as much as the possibility/impossibility that Nora and Hae Sung might finally get together.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

An online search for articles about David Gelb’s documentary “Stan Lee” returns a lengthy list of headlines summarizing what has been, for many years, the story about the story. Even many non-fans know that the recognizable face of Marvel Comics was an opportunist and self-promoter, often reluctant to share the proper amount of creative credit with giants like Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko. But Lee’s influence on the industry he helped build is as undeniable as his affinity for purple prose. Decades of mythmaking and the careful retelling of core talking points have polished Lee’s biography to shine as brightly as the inevitable outcome of any Horatio Alger plot.

So if you are looking for a critical examination of Lee’s life and work, or a thoughtful consideration of his failures and shortcomings, Gelb’s movie is not for you. That said, the filmmaker – whose “Jiro Dreams of Sushi” remains a delight – deserves some credit for at least acknowledging the partnerships that yielded colorful 20th century icons like Spider-Man, the Fantastic Four, the X-Men, and the Hulk. Similar to the approach used by Davis Guggenheim in the much sharper and more affecting Michael J. Fox documentary “Still,” Gelb builds the on-camera and off-camera narration almost entirely from a single voice. In this case, the voice belongs to Stan Lee.

Unsurprisingly, Kirby family members issued a statement calling out the film for the continuing erasure of Jack Kirby’s true contributions from the historical Marvel record. Neal Kirby writes, “Stan Lee had the fortunate circumstance to have access to the corporate megaphone and media, and he used these to create his own mythos as to the creation of the Marvel character pantheon.” Kirby also noted that a long life also advantaged Lee. In the movie, Gelb excerpts – without comment – part of the infamous WBAI “Earthwatch” radio show interaction between Lee and Kirby that happened on the occasion of Kirby’s 70th birthday in 1987.

Completists know that “With Great Power: The Stan Lee Story” (2010) is another valentine – one that does go heavy on the gushing celebrity admirer soundbites. In the new film, Gelb’s access to the massive trove of historical photos (which show without fail the wild evolution of Lee’s wigs, toupees, and hair plugs), television appearances, and of course, the pages of comic books and related artwork, provides a handsome look, although the decision to use so many inserts of model train-like scale dioramas of banal office scenes is less clear. Sections detailing Lee’s longtime partnership with wife Joan and the arrival of Flo Steinberg to the Marvel team temporarily break up the boys club.

Author Abraham Josephine Riesman, who wrote the Eisner- and Hugo-nominated “True Believer: The Rise and Fall of Stan Lee,” is one of many to criticize Gelb’s movie as a corporate hagiography. In a piece for “Vulture,” Riesman takes issue with, among other things, the way in which Disney and Gelb let Lee’s elder “abusers off the hook by deleting them and their actions from Stan’s life.” Riesman understands that Lee was both “a towering American original” and “a trademarked brand.” Gelb’s movie could have used a lot more reflection to account for the complex terrain between those poles.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Filmmaker Lana Wilson’s “Pretty Baby: Brooke Shields” uses two parts (now on Hulu following a world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival) to explore the career of its title subject, the well-known model, actor, performer and celebrity. Life in the spotlight began for Shields when her mother Teri supposedly announced – just five days after her daughter was born – that she intended to guide the child into show business. True to her word, Teri soon booked an Ivory Soap gig when Brooke was eleven months old. Wilson, who previously directed “After Tiller,” “The Departure,” and “Miss Americana,” continues to show a keen critical interest in mental health, society, and gender, but this latest project might be the least successful of the set.

In contrast to Davis Guggenheim’s outstanding “Still,” in which virtually all of the onscreen and offscreen talking is done by Michael J. Fox, Wilson opts for the more typical approach in which a sizable number of friends, associates, and cultural commentators lend their voices to sound bites large and small. As a result, the noise often obscures, rather than illuminates, the “meaning” of Shields in her various guises, iterations, and public personae. Not surprisingly, Shields blows each and every one of the other talking heads out of the water; she’s easily and confidently her own best interpreter and authority.

Additionally, Wilson’s decision to arrange the events in roughly chronological order means that the most intense and fascinating content unfolds during the first episode. By the time we have caught up to the mature Shields as she deals with feelings of guilt and frustration accompanying postpartum depression (over which Tom Cruise publicly made an utter ass of himself), the individual segments have become wobbly and out of balance. As Susie Bright describes it, the vibe “plays out like a VH1 ‘Behind the Music’ episode” and “By not meeting the moment, the biopic deadends in ennui.” The movie’s lack of candor in several areas is most likely the result of demands made by Shields to secure her participation, even though Wilson has claimed that nothing was off limits.

In the introduction of his March 2023 Shields interview in “The New Yorker,” Michael Schulman identifies what I think is the turning point in the public perception of the star. The release of the ghostwritten college advice book “On Your Own,” “revealed that [Shields] was a virgin, a fact that transformed her from a symbol of libertinism into one of Reagan-era chastity.” Setting aside the creepy, obsessive nonsense surrounding the very concept of “purity,” which looks an awful lot like another mechanism used by men to control women, none of the participants nor Wilson adequately account for the shift. Instead, there is an oddly distancing rundown of relationships with Michael Jackson, Dean Cain, and Andre Agassi.

Wilson goes to great lengths to acknowledge – if not completely reckon with – the spectacle of sexualization Shields experienced as a child and a minor. For her part, Shields maintains to this day the same steadfast refusal to accept any shame or regret for “Pretty Baby,” “The Blue Lagoon,” “Endless Love,” and the controversial Calvin Klein spots. Her on-camera poise, evident from childhood and demonstrated in multiple talk show clips of older men commenting on her physical appearance, communicates an astute awareness of the unusual circumstances of her entire life. Brooke Shields has never known a time without fame and the punishments and privileges that go with it.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

A vibrant troupe including several precocious brainiacs, their parents, military personnel, astrophysicists, singing cowboys, a grieving widower, a movie star, and a trio of tiny witches and/or vampires-in-training converges on Asteroid City (population 87) for the 1955 Junior Stargazer Convention in Wes Anderson’s gorgeous new feature. As quintessentially Andersonian as any of his previous movies, “Asteroid City” gracefully combines the considerable talents of its sprawling ensemble and the technical prowess of the filmmaker’s production team to realize a cosmic fantasia of romance and hope, sadness and bereavement, and the astral realms of the real and the imagined.

Expectedly, the setting is as much a character as any of the familiar players, and Anderson conjures a miraculous theatrical framing conceit that makes the head spin and race to keep up. The filmmaker has always expressed an interest in the boundaries between presentational artifice and the authentic emotions experienced by the inhabitants of the diegetic space. Max’s “hit play” adaptation of “Serpico” and the chapter introductions from a book called “The Royal Tenenbaums” are two examples, but “Asteroid City” extends well beyond similar devices in “The Grand Budapest Hotel” and “The French Dispatch.”

We have witnessed Anderson’s successful execution of this approach to nested story-within-story before, but the effect on the viewer here may be its apotheosis – at least until Anderson devises another level. The narrative events of “Asteroid City,” as best as we can make sense of them, suggest a nonfiction “Playhouse 90”-esque television show depicting the behind-the-scenes creation of a stage production then realized as a 360-degree panorama unencumbered by the limitations of interior space. And once we get outside to marvel at the startling azure skies and the ochre buttes – complemented by the teals and oranges of the human-made objects – we are exactly as dazzled and beguiled as Anderson intends.

The mixed reactions following the film’s world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival come as little surprise to the devoted fans who can only sigh. Who else makes movies like Wes Anderson? In 2014, scholar Peter C. Kunze listed several of the particularities that “make Anderson’s films so charming and infuriating, distinctive and derivative, pleasing and exasperating,” concisely summarizing the poles of adoration and denunciation expressed by audiences and critics. Now, almost a decade later, Kunze’s thoughts on the Anderson binary that pits irony against sincerity are just as apt. I for one remain at home in my firmly-staked Khaki Scouts tent, my private berth aboard the Darjeeling Limited, and my deck chair on the Belafonte.

An initial viewing of “Asteroid City” can be overwhelming, especially given the question of how the expanding roster of regulars (Schwartzman, Swinton, Goldblum, Dafoe, Norton, Brody, Revolori, etc.) and newcomers (Hanks, Robbie, Carell, Hawke, Dillon, Davis, etc.) will be balanced in an enterprise with so many speaking roles. But Anderson’s history and this movie’s conceptual scheme of actors playing actors – and in some cases, actors playing actors playing actors – affirm that there are no small parts. Jason Schwartzman’s combat photographer Augie Steenbeck is paired with Scarlett Johansson’s Marilyn Monroe-like Midge Campbell, but the relationship between their kids – Augie’s son Woodrow (Jake Ryan) and Midge’s daughter Dinah (Grace Edwards) – is treated with equal interest and respect by Anderson, who shares story credit with longtime collaborator Roman Coppola.

Wes Anderson has come to represent a kind of genre unto himself, so the choice to frame his thematic concerns within the otherworldly realm of science fiction is just another one of the special attractions of “Asteroid City.” Admirers will come to the movie already prepared for the artful manipulations communicated through the auteur’s fascination with intertext and metanarrative. At one point, someone asks “Am I not in this?” In another moment, a director encourages an actor to “Just keep telling the story,” while we catch a glimpse of the dream within the dream.

And did I mention the UFO?

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Sundance Film Festival Grand Jury Prize Winner “A Thousand and One” is a vital New York story that unfolds over the course of a decade. And even though its spot-on period detail situates the drama in the place Toni Morrison called “the last true city,” the emotional weight of a mother’s love for a child is universal. The movie’s history-by-suggestion covers the mayoral tenure of Rudy Giuliani and stretches to include an audio excerpt of Michael Bloomberg’s January 1, 2002 inauguration address – the very line that references Morrison’s claim. Writer-director A. V. Rockwell’s first feature marks an auspicious debut. “A Thousand and One” is powerful and personal filmmaking.

Throughout the movie, Rockwell incisively critiques a number of structural systems that disadvantage those fighting for survival on the economic margins. But the struggle of the principal characters is never buried by the social commentary; the world inhabited by Teyana Taylor’s Inez is precise and charged with genuine urgency. Taylor is already well-known in the entertainment industry for her work as a busy recording artist, choreographer, writer, and actor. Her performance here as a woman who refuses to be chewed up, refuses to give up or give in, feels like a turning point or a breakthrough.

In just a few well-chosen compositions, Rockwell introduces Inez with pinpoint economy. Finishing a short sentence at Rikers Island (Rockwell confidently skips right past the traditional and expected release sequence), Inez quickly locates six-year-old Terry (Aaron Kingsley Adetola). This little boy, who we learn was placed in foster care while Inez was incarcerated, is too young to fully understand everything that is going on. But his presence motivates and energizes Inez, who, in essence, kidnaps him and disappears into Harlem. It is instantly clear that she will do whatever it takes to provide the kid with access to the tools for a better life.

Rockwell and Taylor combine forces in a way that steadily builds dramatic tension. Inez’s decisive act taking Terry away from legally-appointed guardianship carries with it a looming sense of dread at their possible discovery. As long as he is a minor, the family’s day-to-day requires vigilance, subterfuge and obfuscation to hide Terry’s identity from anyone who might find out what happened. But along with this centralized pressure, Rockwell illustrates the oppressive features of sweeping changes that brutalized – even criminalized – the poor under the guise of making things better and more livable for all.

From controversial and humiliating “stop and frisk” policing to the unconscionable tactics of cruel landlords who would profit from gentrification opportunities, “A Thousand and One” can suggest a David and Goliath battleground that threatens hopelessness. But Inez refuses to blink, even when a shocking revelation changes everything. Near the end of the movie, Inez says to the now 17-year-old Terry (Josiah Cross), “Nobody else give a shit about Black women except for other Black women, and even that shit get messy.” It’s yet another of Rockwell’s piercing observations, all the more potent for the way it alludes to the extraordinary sacrifices known only to a mother.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Until I saw “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse,” I really thought the cinematic expression of the multiverse concept had peaked with the triumphant Best Picture Academy Award for “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” a movie that catapults us – as I wrote in my original review – “onto the tracks of a rollercoaster careening through a dizzying set of alternative (sur)realities.” But the new superhero film, which continues the onscreen story of teenagers Miles Morales, Gwen Stacy, and a whole army of colorful Spider-people that began in 2018’s “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse,” is a glorious follow-up. “Across the Spider-Verse” is to the original installment as “Toy Story 2,” “The Godfather Part II,” and “The Empire Strikes Back” are to their franchises.

Last year, “Everything Everywhere All at Once” arrived in theaters just ahead of “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.” And here we are again, as “The Flash” – yet another multiverse-oriented movie – lands in two short weeks. The concept of parallel worlds has been evolving since at least the ancient Greeks, and Marvel has been steadily laying the groundwork for even more of it. In the narrow corridor of contemporary media, fatigue has been the common F-word when it comes to superhero cinema. “Across the Spider-Verse” presents a strong argument that there is still plenty of gas in the tank.

Admittedly, it helps if you’re already a fan (of comics, graphic design, animation, cinema, intertextuality, etc.), but directors Joaquim Dos Santos, Kemp Powers, and Justin K. Thompson, working from a screenplay by Phil Lord, Christopher Miller, and David Callaham, locate the emotional core at the heart of the saga and never let it get smothered or obscured by the stunning visuals. The Spider-Man brought to life by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko is arguably the greatest hero of the Silver Age. Even average citizens have likely heard some variation of the aphorism “With great power comes great responsibility.” And one of the triumphs of this iteration is the way it creates a conversation between the old and the new.

The filmmakers pack a lot of story into the movie’s 140 minutes, introducing another set of web-slingers who either assist or oppose Miles – for any number of reasons made clear along the way – once he leaves Earth-1610 through a portal and unwittingly threatens a canon-disrupting event. Shameik Moore and Hailee Steinfeld, as Miles and Gwen, interact with a dazzling ensemble that includes Oscar Isaac’s Spider-Man 2099, Daniel Kaluuya’s Spider-Punk, Issa Rae’s Spider-Woman, Karan Soni’s Spider-Man India, and several others involved in the complicated business of the Spider-Society. To paraphrase Shakespeare from “The Merchant of Venice,” everyone plays a part.

But for all the head-swiveling action sequences and clever homages (including several direct tributes to “Everything Everywhere All at Once”), “Across the Spider-Verse” successfully reimagines the character while retaining the things that have made Spidey great since 1962: coming-of-age questions of identity, the challenges of personal growth, conflict with loved ones, the pain of sacrifice, and the uncertainties and anxieties that exist in the liminal space between adolescence and adulthood. Contrary to the racist objections that have been playing out since the introduction of Miles Morales in 2011, all the differences and updates take absolutely nothing away from Peter Parker. And that’s amazing.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Writer-director Nicole Holofcener leans in – all the way in – to the sturdy milieu of the well-heeled, narcissist-inhabited, New York-based comedy landscape dominated for so many decades by the now fading/faded Woody Allen. A24 presents Holofcener’s “You Hurt My Feelings” as a May theatrical release following its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival. In the film, protagonist Beth (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) is a moderately successful writer second-guessing her current book, a fiction follow-up to her memoir, which explored the “verbal abuse” she suffered at the hands of her father. Beth’s husband Don (Tobias Menzies) treats clients as a therapist, although he worries he might not be any good at it. Grown son Eliot (Owen Teague) manages a marijuana dispensary but hopes to complete his own long-gestating writing project.

The blissful marriage, which Holofcener deliberately intensifies with an array of affectionate little gestures that humorously irritate Eliot if not the viewer, is built on a foundation of unwavering love and trust. Or so Beth naively assumes. While out shopping with sister Sarah (Michaela Watkins) and brother-in-law Mark (Arian Moayed), Beth overhears Don criticize and dismiss her new novel. Because her husband has provided none of this kind of negative critique to her face, Beth is devastated, gutted, and very nearly destroyed. She wants to throw up. Her feelings, as most assuredly indicated by the title of the movie, have been deeply hurt.

Holofcener, who continues to demonstrate her gift for deceptively natural dialogue, poses a number of instantly recognizable questions. Do we all bend and shape the truth to avoid conflict with those closest to us? Do we all contemplate the limits of our own vocational and avocational skill? Wouldn’t most of us choose warm affirmation over radical honesty, especially when delivered by a loved one? To some extent, the principal characters in “You Hurt My Feelings” are creative artists, or at least use creative impulses to make a living. Interior decorator Sarah and actor Mark are just as vulnerable as Beth and Don to rejection.

As an analyst, Don is arguably the least traditional “creator” of the quartet, but Holofcener shares some of the movie’s most intriguing exchanges inside the “safe space” of his office. In the film’s most bracing running gag, real-life married couple Amber Tamblyn and David Cross openly unleash blunt and painful invective that the considerate and caring Beth and Don would never entertain. The comic juxtaposition of lovers versus fighters reminds us of the differences between those who seem to thrive on conflict and partners who unfailingly cheer and support each other.

Some critics have called out the privilege and first-world problems at the heart of “You Hurt My Feelings” as some kind of deficiency or shortcoming, but the title alone should offer the first clue that the filmmaker has a handle on irony. Louis-Dreyfus, allowed here to explore comic and dramatic dimensions of performance not aligned with Elaine Benes, Christine Campbell or Selina Meyer, worked with Holofcener (and the late James Gandolfini) a decade ago on “Enough Said.”  Hopefully, we won’t need to wait another ten years before the next collaboration.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Richard Wayne Penniman, known to the world by his stage name Little Richard, died in 2020 from causes related to bone cancer. The popular music legend, often referred to as the “Architect of Rock and Roll,” pioneered sounds and styles that would be idolized and emulated by Otis Redding, Sam Cooke, James Brown, Bob Dylan, Tina Turner, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Michael Jackson, and Prince, to name a few. David Bowie said that he “heard God” when he listened to “Tutti Frutti.” The star would have loved “Little Richard: I Am Everything,” the feature documentary by Oscar-nominee Lisa Cortés. The filmmaker has put together an electrifying movie worthy of its subject.

“I Am Everything” premiered in January at the Sundance Film Festival and is currently available via the major streaming services. In the movie, Cortés masterfully presents the most significant dualities that defined Richard. Growing up in Macon, Georgia, Richard was exposed to the more reserved services of his mother’s Baptist congregation as well as the exuberant and highly participatory worship at the African Methodist Episcopal Church where his father was minister. Later, Richard would experience the racially biased discrimination and exploitation that would see white record labels taking the lion’s share of profits and Pat Boone charting “Tutti Frutti” higher than his own recording.

But the biggest doubling – at least for the mainstream audiences that would “tolerate” it as part of the singer’s flamboyant rock and roll package – manifests in Richard’s complex queerness. Richard would periodically renounce homosexuality to embrace the “godliness” of a faith-based Christian life, a source of frustration for generations of fans that Cortés addresses with great sensitivity and no candy coating. Richard’s ability to cross the “color line” in appealing to all races is astonishing in the context of his bold embrace of being openly gay in a time of fierce prejudice.

Cortés tracks this all without ever losing sight of Richard’s phenomenal talent and work ethic. The origin of the makeup and pompadour wigs as part of Richard’s image is linked to Billy Wright (who, along with Sister Rosetta Tharpe, was a key influence), but here is that polarity again: Richard claimed that straight white males in his audience, recognizing the singer’s lack of interest, wouldn’t feel threatened or take to worrying about their girlfriends. Too good to be true?

The wild story that in 1957 Richard mistook the rapidly moving light of Sputnik for some kind of apocalyptic fireball – causing him to discard his jewelry and pledge faithfulness to God right then and there – is included in the movie, serving as a gift-wrapped metaphor for the confusion that would contribute to the cycle of the singer’s swings between the less popular production of gospel records and the incendiary and profane rock songs preferred by the masses (some viewers will certainly blush when the meaning of the original “Tutti Frutti” lyrics are explicated). Self-hatred might be the easy answer for Richard’s back-and-forth career moves, but Cortés refuses to oversimplify or smooth out Richard’s devotion to each of these worlds. The result is a terrific biography.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Filmmaker Ryan White’s documentary “Pamela: A Love Story” (stylized onscreen as “Pamela, a Love Story”) serves as a companion piece to the contemporaneously published memoir “Love, Pamela.” Both artifacts allow model and actor Pamela Anderson the opportunity to reshape many aspects of the media-derived narrative of her once chaotic life. The performer rocketed to international superstardom in the 1990s on the sandy and sun-soaked beaches of the television series “Baywatch,” but it was her tumultuous and ill-fated marriage to Motley Crue drummer Tommy Lee – which reached an apex, or nadir, via the public release of a stolen sex tape – that some would argue ushered in the era of the internet-driven celebrity scandal.

Before the movie walks us through Anderson’s shock and frustration at the theft of her private property – as well as the absolute circus-on-a-rollercoaster that came with an unpredictable and eventually abusive rock star – White presents some background information about the intense relationship between Anderson’s parents and the personality traits of her father that embraces some armchair psychology to suggest the origins of the subject’s penchant for bad boys with wild streaks.

Anderson invites White into her home, narrating the film in a combination of conversational on-camera interviews and audio recordings of excerpts from her many journals, diaries, and personal correspondence. The specter of the sex tape at first hovers over the story, but White’s curated inclusion of a huge supply of home video – accompanied by Anderson’s explanation that she captured, recorded, and documented her life as a matter of regularity and routine – serves as a reasonable explanation of the intimate footage’s origin and existence.

White also integrates archival material that charts the course of Anderson’s success from the seemingly overnight sensation of being “discovered” at a 1989 BC Lions football game to an invitation to be photographed for “Playboy” (she would end up on more of that magazine’s covers than any other person). The absence of those who might offer deeper critical insights and context regarding the entrenched double standards faced by women (in entertainment and in general) means that Anderson alone must explicate and deconstruct the feelings that accompanied years of limited and limiting lines of questions that inevitably zeroed in on her physical body, her plastic surgery, and her sex symbol status.

That approach works. Time has not been kind to the casual way in which talk show hosts felt entitled to diminish and objectify Anderson, but the old clips selected by White confirm what turns out to be the greatest delight of the documentary: Pamela Anderson was and is intelligent, quick-witted, candid, and always prepared to deal with the older white men in jackets and ties seated behind desks that inflate their power and authority.

The last sections of the movie follow the stunt casting of Anderson as Roxie Hart in “Chicago” on Broadway in 2022. It is no spoiler to say that she aimed to prove naysayers wrong yet again. By this point, White has skipped over some of Anderson’s reality television and “Dancing With the Stars” work, but he does manage to squeeze in at least minimal acknowledgment of her animal rights activism, her curious relationship with Julian Assange, the cult film “Barb Wire,” and her five post-Lee marriages. Through it all, a charming Anderson handles everything like a pro.