Movie Reviews

Heavy metal, heavier heartache

 

Steve "Lips" Kudlow following his dream.  (Metal On Metal Productions Inc.)

Anvil! The Story of Anvil

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Running time: 85 minutes

No MPAA rating: (profanity, adult situations, nudity, drugs)

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On the Web

"Anvil!  The Story of Anvil"

The really good rock 'n' roll documentaries, like Martin Scorsese's "Shine A Light" of last year, showcase the musicians and give the audience a little backstage peek or two. 

Mick Jagger driving Scorsese crazy by not providing a song lineup until just before show time is the kind of "personal" stuff we usually get.

A truly great rock 'n' roll documentary needs to reveal more than just the flash and dash and close-ups of rock stars performing into the glaring spotlights as thousands of hypnotized devotees worship their idols wildly.

"Anvil!  The Story of Anvil" is not just a documentary that digs deeper.  This astonishing, truly magical look at the band fame snubbed isn't merely a documentary like that.

 

It is THE documentary like that. 

 

"Anvil" slams your heart hard and asks for nothing, with the possible exception of a couple hours of your time.  

Is it worth it?  "Anvil!" rates above even the phrase "must see."

Director Sacha Gervasi, who left home at 16 in the early '80s to serve as a roadie for the band he adored then and now, has managed the near-impossible.  This is an extremely intimate portrait of rock music's long and winding road that's full of detours, pot holes and tough-as-nails honesty.

If you've never heard of the heavy metal band that formed in a Toronto basement in 1973, that's just the point.  You don't have to love or even like heavy metal music to appreciate what's happening here.

 

School friends Steve "Lips" Kudlow (guitar) and drummer Robb Reiner started rocking together in Reiner's basement when they were 14.  By all accounts, "Anvil" out-rocked the big boys (Bon Jovi, Whitesnake, The Scorpions) at a sold-out stadium show in 1984.

But as someone says as this very personal tale unfolds of two guys who made a pact back in that neighborhood basement to keep rockin' until they're old, "Sometimes life deals you a tough deck."

Fate forgot one little thing, though:

These heavy metal jokers are wild.

Jones tackles feelings of vintage game

 

Tommy Lee Jones recalls playing offensive tackle for Harvard. (Kino International)

Harvard Beats Yale 29-29

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Running time: 105 minutes
No MPAA rating: (profanity)

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On the Web

"Harvard Beats Yale 29-29"

There's a gripping fascination that locks in when Tommy Lee Jones speaks on a movie screen.  We've seen his powerful screen presence over and over in stunning performances.  Most recently in "No Country for Old Men" and "In the Valley of Elah."

Jones, San Antonio's Academy Award winner-in residence, brings something we haven't seen to the screen in Kevin Rafferty's enthralling documentary titled "Harvard Beats Yale 29-29."

Jones brings himself.

I'm not sure how Rafferty got Jones to open up like this, but his verbiage about playing offensive tackle for Harvard in late November, 1968 against the favored Yale team is about as good as documentary monologues get.

On the down side, Jones is joined on screen by others recalling the game.  All pale in comparison to the crisply eloquent Jones.  Some are downright boring; talking heads that the filmmaker should have trimmed back a bit.

The subject matter couldn't be richer as discussion fodder, though.  Yale and Harvard are undefeated for the first time since 1909 as they kick it off in Harvard Stadium.

Yale's quarterback, Brian Dowling, hasn't lost a game since the 7th grade.  His halfback, Calvin Hill, will soon be headed to the Dallas Cowboys and future Oscar-winning actress Meryl Streep is probably somewhere in the stands.  She was dating the Yale fullback at the time.

Al Gore's roomie Jones and the rest of the Harvard teams hangs tough.  The result is a college football game for the ages, and an often-fascinating look back by those involved.  Rafferty ("The Atomic Cafe") does a fine job of injecting vintage game footage to heighten the tension.

Jones, speaking in his familiar matter-of-fact manner, sums up his inner-emotions perfectly when he talks about taking of his "hat" after the final whistle blows.

"Harvard Beats Yale 29-29" isn't for everyone, just those who enjoy reality cinema that truly mines the soul.

Strained Man

 

The journalist (Robert Downey Jr.), left, and the homeless former musical prodigy (Jamie Foxx) get to know each other. (DW Studios LLC/Universal Studios)

The Soloist

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Running time: 127 minutes
MPAA rating: PG-13 (profanity, thematic elements, drugs)

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On the Web

"The Soloist"

There are two ways to transform real-life characters into big-screen drama.

The filmmaker can greatly embellish, turning true grit into an enlightening, but entertaining night of movie drama.

Or, as director Joe Wright does with "The Soloist," the story can be played close to the story-arc vest.

Although well acted by Oscar-winner Jamie Foxx ("Ray") and Oscar nominee Robert Downey Jr. ("Tropic Thunder," "Iron Man"), "The Soloist" orchestrates a one-note drama and a longsuffering, explosive tone sure to have moviegoers squirming in their seats.

Screenwriter Susannah Grant, herself an Academy Award nominee for "Erin Brockovich," opts for reality over entertainment.  From this aisle seat, that exposes an odd couple friendship forged as a nightmare-like roller coaster ride of two unlikely friends united primarily by demons.

Steve Lopez (Downey), a Los Angeles Times metro columnist haunted by deadlines, a busted marriage and, in the early going at least, a busted face (due to a bicycle spill), happens upon a homeless man playing a violin.  The violin is down to two strings.  Nathaniel Ayers (Foxx), who keeps his over-stuffed grocery cart within arm's reach, has been mugged 14 times hanging onto it.

Truthfully, there must be around 90,000 homeless person stories in L.A. because that's how many lost souls wander the Skid Row streets once the sun sets below the palm trees.

Lopez is enchanted by Ayers once he picks up through Nathaniel's rapid chatter babble something about attending Juilliard as a music prodigy back in his youth.

What works best about "The Soloist" is the tightening bond between two very different men and how their relationship changes them both.  I like the way Wright, who also called the shots on "Atonement," maintains an equally tormented tone between two driven men.  Neither is likely to improve much.  Nathaniel will have nothing to do with medication that could help his sometimes violent mental condition.

Lopez fights his own demons (the shaky, volatile state of the newspaper), while constantly battling to "fix" someone probably destined to play his beloved Beethoven concertos in a traffic tunnel instead of a concert hall no matter what.

I can't put my finger on exactly why this happened to me, but there's something about this tale of raging emotional bulls that never quite pulled me fully into the story.  Foxx and Downey are two of my favorite actors.  Even so, I saw actors at work here much of the time instead of original characters on the screen.

And something else:  You need to know that this will not be two hours of lighthearted "Rain Man" (1988) entertainment.  Though Nathaniel rattles on verbally much like Dustin Hoffman did winning a best actor Oscar as Raymond, the autistic savant, "The Soloist" never once sugar-coats a serious medical condition to lighten the load with laughs.

The same thing happened in October with "Flash of Genius."  Greg  Kinnear did everything right as Bob Kearns, the inventor who took on Detroit automakers for stealing his intermittent windshield wiper invention.  That one stuck basically to the desolate facts and suffered at the box office for keeping reality real.

Sometimes, sad stories are simply that:  sad stories.