Moving Actively Through the Years
Reviews and Comments by Ken Burke
I invite you to join me on a regular basis to see how my responses to current cinematic offerings compare to the critical establishment, which I’ll refer to as either the CCAL (Collective Critics at Large) if they’re supportive or the OCCU (Often Cranky Critics Universe) when they go negative. However, due to COVID concerns I’m mostly addressing streaming options with limited visits to theaters, where I don’t think I’ve missed much anyway, though better options may be on the horizon. (Note: Anything in bold blue [some may look near purple] is a link to something more in the review.)
My reviews’ premise: “You can’t please everyone, so you got to please yourself.”
(from "Garden Party" by Rick Nelson and the Stone Canyon Band, 1972 album of the song's name)
Similar to my situation regarding my previous posting (Freud's Last Session), once again I found myself last week with a good number of non-blog-activities so my comments here will be in Short Takes mode (but a with a couple of fine films), with no Spoiler alerts in the first review because it’s a documentary about a well-known subject; also, while I have a goal of focusing on 2024 releases that won’t happen this week either, but I intend to make that connection from here on out (maybe ...).
SHORT TAKES
Here’s the trailer:
(Use the full screen button in the image’s lower right to enlarge its size;
activate the same button or use “esc” keyboard key to return to normal.)
“Everyone has three lives: the public, the private, and the secret,” says the first graphic we see on screen. When you watch a documentary about a person(s) you’d usually expect it to be like a biography where you’re given information on the subject, often with testimony from various others who knew/know about the film's focus. In the case of … Noise it’s more like an autobiography (well, not fully; Baez isn’t the director here) as most of what we learn about her comes from contemporary interviews with this well-known singer/activist, born in 1941, now in her early 80s; passages from her diaries and audio tape cassette recordings over the years; old family photos and footage of her childhood with her parents, Albert Baez (died 2007) and Joan Chandos Bridge Baez (died 2013), sisters Pauline (born 1938, died 2016), Mimi (born 1945, died 2001—best known as the wife/musical partner of Richard Fariña) when they were Quakers as Joan faced discrimination/ isolation as a child due to her Mexican heritage from her father; concert footage and interviews from the early 1960s when she soon became known as the “Queen of Folk” (even made the cover of TIME magazine); footage of her singing with her early lover, Bob Dylan, then an interview with Dylan during his 1965 U.K. tour (captured in Don’t Look Back, D.A. Pennebaker, 1967) where he dismisses her as not a girlfriend, breaking her heart (captured marvelously in her "Diamonds & Rust" hit song, on her 1975 album of the same name [essentially revived her career at the time], with the great closing line “I’ve already paid”); then ongoing footage of her life and career since then, including marriage (1968-’73) to anti-war activist David Harris, which failed with her difficulty to maintain a close relationship (panic attacks), then more recent concerts as she continued to champion many social causes, although she retired from touring performances in 2019 (there’s also some footage of Pauline, obviously shot before she died, so this production’s been in progress for quite some time).*
*One aspect of her irregular off-and-on connections with Dylan which didn’t make it into this doc is her joining him on his Rolling Thunder Revue concerts, 1975-‘76, which I saw in January 1976 at the Houston Astrodome as a benefit for jailed boxer Rubin “Hurricane “Carter, found guilty of murder in 1967 until his conviction was finally overturned in 1985. Also on that bill were sets by Isaac Hayes and Stevie Wonder, while the Revue included Dylan, Baez, and a large group of others including Carlos Santana, Stephen Stills, and Ringo Starr; that was my only time seeing Baez live in concert.
However, in addition to all of this musical chronology (with the more-recent interviews interspersed with aspects of all that earlier material, so we’re constantly moving from present to past, then back again) there’s lots of current discussion about the decades she’s spent in therapy, not only examining that lingering trauma of isolation—along with competition with her sisters, especially Mimi—but also accusations of being molested as a child by her father (and others), although there are recordings of him where he flatly rejects it despite Joan’s counter-statements that it happened, he was in denial about it at best. These private revelations add an extensive dimension to a person I’ve known about, listened to, respected for many years without knowing of the ongoing turmoil in her life, so I find these additional, honest inclusions to bring greater depth to what could have been merely a sincere celebration of a respected, famous career in the public eye. (Similarly, I got a lot of useful background insight into another of my favorite singers in another documentary I saw last year, Gordon Lightfoot: If You Could Read My Mind [Martha Kehoe and Joan Tosoni, 2019; review in our May 24, 2023 posting]. You could make a nice double-feature for yourself of two 20th-century musical icons by viewing this one and … Lightfoot …, with the latter streaming for free on Amazon Prime Video and other platforms or a $3.99 rental from Apple TV+, etc.) Joan Baez … is available on streaming where you can see it for free on Hulu (preceded by a few ads, then a few more about 20 min. in; seemed like there would be other interruptions but those were somehow skipped over when I saw it) or pay $4.99 for a rental from Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV+, Vudu, etc. if you wish.
As with the Lightfoot film, your best experience with … Noise is watching it rather than reading about it so I’ll just close with a strong recommendation that you do so—the CCAL joins me as the Rotten Tomatoes positive reviews are at a delightfully-strong 96%, with the usually-more-hesitant Metacritic average score at 75%—leaving you with my usual finale of a Musical Metaphor, this time Joan Baez singing the traditional spiritual “Swing Low Sweet Chariot” at https://www. youtube.com/watch?v=OWkceywm9Co from her performance at the famous 1969 Woodstock Music and Art Fair, an audio-only version of her entire song, connected here with a shortened video version (2:25) of that performance, probably from the magnificent Woodstock documentary (Michael Wadleigh, 1970). This song captures the underpinnings of her social-justice-oriented life, still speaks to her sense of time spent as best she could in hopes it has inspired others to do such good likewise.
Here’s the trailer:
If you can abide plot spoilers read on, but this blog’s intended for those who’ve seen the film or want to save some $ (as well as recognizing those readers like me who just aren’t that tech-savvy). To help any of you who want to learn more details yet avoid these all-important plot-reveals I’ll identify any give-away sentences/sentence-clusters with colors plus arrows:
⇒The first and last words will be noted with arrows and red.⇐ OK, now continue on if you prefer.
Normally, I wouldn’t review a film that’s been out for a few years (unless it was a re-release of something in my estimation of a 4½ or 5 stars-level classic), but Two Guys in the Dark is also a site where requests for reviews from independent filmmakers are taken seriously so when we have the time and space—and the film’s of the high quality that this one represents—we’re happy to accommodate these inquiries, as is the case with Nobody Is Crazy (a very clever title once you’ve got the full context of the film), so I thank director/screenwriter/actor (well-accomplished in all of these roles) Arioni for making me aware of his most-unique cinematic experience. Set in Argentina (dialogue in Spanish, so, monolinguists, deal with the subtitles as it’s worth the effort), this story is about Rafael (Manuel Gutierrez)—often called Rafa—a 16-year-old with OCD who was orphaned, then adopted, but his new parents split up so he lives with his mother (Paula Arioni [sister of the director; further, Gutierrez is her son, several other relatives are also in minor roles, confirmed to me by Federico J., so this whole film is quite a family affair]) who’s tired of his inabilities to function in school so she’s ready to send him off to a military academy unless he can bring about some drastic changes (he’s already met with several psychologists but either tells them what they want to hear or ignores them completely), with a last attempt by joining a OCD self-help group. After his initial session he meets Nobody (Arioni, the director)—Nadie in Spanish—who was supposed to be in the group that day but missed it, a young man in his early 20s who wears a mask and gloves, claims to be a time-traveler from the 1980s, says he’s been jumping around in various eras for the last 10 years through the magic of a guy called the Mute (Miguel Buteler), who appears without prior notice.
Soon, Rafa and Nobody are spending a lot of time together, with the latter constantly passing on attitudinal-wisdom in an effort to get his new friend to focus on the present, overcome his obsessions/insecurities; then they’re joined by Daria (Lara Ammi Wheeler) who takes an immediate liking to Nobody (later he says they’ve been interacting through his various time travels). Rafa isn’t convinced Nobody is who he says he is, does some Internet research to find this strange—but highly-optimistic—man may be Lisandro (Juan Barceló), a frequent escapee from a local mental hospital (yet that’s not true, as he later meets Lisandro, who ultimately gives Rafa his own mask). Rafa thinks Nobody may be delusional, but this upbeat stranger says everyone is crazy; he also says that, despite scenarios like what we see in Back to the Future (Robert Zemeckis, 1985), the past, present, and future are all set, can’t be altered so that even if you did change something via time-travel you’d just be carrying out what’s predetermined. ⇒As the story progresses (it seems to me to be an intentionally-ambiguous-manner, leaving it up to us to reach our own conclusions), Nobody implies that he’s actually an older version of Rafa, then Rafa encounters the Mute (who does talk), appears to initiate Rafa’s own time-travel adventures as he wakes up wearing a mask.⇐
This is a fascinating film: we’re never really sure what’s up with Nobody—or Rafa for that matter, as maybe everything we’re seeing is a fantasy projection of his own muddled-mind—which gets us back to the title. Maybe Nobody is insane or, conversely, none of us are despite the craziness that so often surrounds us, making us feel like we must have taken leave of our senses (watched any TV news lately?). Nobody …’s been seen/won at film festivals for the last few years, but now you can watch it for free on Tubi TV, although you do have to put up with ads (1-3 or 1-6) roughly every 15 min. for the first hour, then just once more after that, although it’s also available on YouTube (I used Tubi, don’t know if this other site has any ads) or you can rent it from Amazon Prime VIdeo for $2.99 where you’re guaranteed to be commercial-free. What you won’t find are the standard review clusters with no listing at MC, only 1 at RT, but that one's positive (9 of 10). However, if you go to IMDb you’ll find 12 reviews (plus mine), all of which are supportive, some completely so, a few with minor reservations (I found the ones by Reba Chaisson and Gabriella Foor to be the most useful). In addition to highly recommending Nobody …, I’ll leave you with an (assumed) appropriate Musical Metaphor, Jimmy Buffet’s “Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes” (from his 1977 album of the same name) at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b7JpxavO9NE providing these words of wisdom: “Nothing remains quite the same / With all of my running and all of my cunning / If I couldn’t laugh I just would go insane / If we couldn’t laugh we just would go insane / If we weren’t all crazy we would go insane.” I think Nobody would agree, if for no other reason than how Buffet’s energetic performance here implies a kind of high emotional release Rafa so desperately needs within his life.
Related Links Which You Might Find Interesting:
Just one option for you: (1) Broadcast date and nominations deadline are set for 2025 Oscars.
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