In the formative, pre-Allen Klein days, Apple was a fun place to be for both artists and staff, and the company racked up some early successes that any major label would have envied. Mary Hopkin’s “Those Were the Days,” produced by Paul McCartney, sold roughly a quarter-jillion copies and probably would have sold twice that if it hadn’t come out the same week as “Hey Jude.” Badfinger, having dicked around for a year or two as the Iveys and gotten nowhere, blazed into the rock stratosphere clinging to a lightweight but irresistible McCartney confection, “Come and Get It.” The problem was that McCartney couldn’t be there for everyone all the time, and the label’s successes correlate pretty exactly with his direct involvement or lack thereof. Where Paul could sneeze and make it a hit, George Harrison, the film makes clear, had little acumen as a record producer. Helming disks for Jackie Lomax, Billy Preston and Doris Troy, Harrison’s M.O. was to pack the studio with as many ringers as he could (Eric Clapton, for one, seems to have played on half of Apple’s output) and have them let ’er rip. With no firm hand at the tiller, the resulting musical whole was less than the sum of its parts, and Harrison never produced a breakaway hit for the label.

The picture that emerges of Apple as the film goes on is of a pet project that never had the commitment, talent and resources it needed to become a lasting force in the music industry. Sure, they could make money with a flash-in-the-pan hit like “Those Were the Days,” but for someone like Jackie Lomax, a not-untalented guy who might have developed into a worthwhile artist on a mainstream label, Apple offered little apart from the cachet of working alongside the Beatles, and even that didn’t end up counting for very much. Apple didn’t send their artists on promotional tours or offer tour support, the Beatles having decided several years prior that live touring was passé. Because at least one Beatle had to approve all signings, many promising acts who came near Apple’s orbit, including Fleetwood Mac and David Bowie, were allowed to slip away. And when Apple did manage to find a genuine star, they blew it. I am no fan of James Taylor, but you’d have to deaf, dumb and obstinate not to recognize the man has something special. Apple couldn’t make Taylor’s first album a hit — Apple did get him a BBC special that didn’t air for months — and the Beatles eventually did the right thing and released him from his Apple contract. It is rather sad to watch Apple slowly wither as its four founders drift away from it, and by the time John Lennon signs David Peel and Elephant’s Memory, fringe acts with no prospect of wide commercial success, the writing is pretty much on the wall already.

While the story of Apple on the whole is kind of a bummer, it’s colorfully told by the artists and staff who made it happen: Jackie Lomax (looking inexplicably like Wild Bill Hickock, complete with Stetson, handlebar ’stache and tin star), promotions manager Tony Bramwell, Badfinger members Ron Griffiths and Joey Molland, Elephant’s Memory bassist Gary Van Scyoc and street musician David Peel, still as freaky as ever he was. (The one person sorely missed is Mary Hopkin, who surely has some good stories of working with McCartney.) In a straight-up Beatles doc, these people would come across as distinctly second-tier; here, they get to tell their own story, and serve as an important reminder that the Beatles were not the only ones with hopes and dreams invested in Apple.

Despite the tasteless pun of its title (I think Did I Hear You Say That Their Must Be a Catch? would’ve been a nice, lynching-connotations-free option), its bare-bones visual approach and gargantuan running time, Strange Fruit is worth checking out for the way it rescues many talented and interesting people from the Beatles’ shadows.

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Following his father’s death, Casper (Rosen) has come back, but refuses to enter his dead father’s house. He sleeps in a tent pitched in the back yard when he isn’t tooling around town on his beat up bicycle. As the hours dwindle before he’s scheduled to return to active duty, Casper decides to visit some old friends, but not before he tosses back a few shots at a local dive. It’s at the bar that he runs into Becky (Lister-Jones), the girl he pined for throughout his time in high school. Back then he was kind of a loner and Becky was real popular. They had a couple of classes together and were even lab partners once. Still, when she sees him for the first time in years, she has no clue who Casper is.

Mind you, Becky is a little distracted; her life is in a shambles. She’s a grad student having an affair with her adviser and their indiscretion has just come to light with the man’s wife… who also happens to be the head of the English department. The justifiably bitter wife has stolen Becky’s laptop (which contains her thesis) and is threatening to kick her out of grad school.

Casper picks a fight with some guys who appear to be hassling Becky, not realizing that they’re her friends. This misunderstanding leads to their reintroduction  and the beginning of their night. Even though she doesn’t know this guy anymore, something about Casper compels Becky to ditch her friends and walk off with him. From there, they run into some of Casper’s old friends, including Josh Harnett’s Paddy, a sort of anarchist who has a bicycle gang, and also have a run in  with Becky’s adviser, David, a spineless professor played by Michael Imperioli. In between, these two wayward spirits discover that they have more in common than they thought and, although neither comes right out and says it, they start to fall in love.

Stuck Between Stations is a brisk film at just 86 minutes. It was shot fast and cheap on HD, but it is in no way an amateurish effort like some digital films. The director, Brady Kiernan, put a lot of thought and care into the composition of his shots and uses a nice combination of hand held and locked down camera shots. The editing is pretty straight forward, not a lot of jump cuts, and he does some nice stuff with using split screen to show events taking place in multiple locations. The music of Grant Cutler was another highlight for me. His beautiful compositions added emotion to every scene and brought a dreaminess to the late escapade of Casper and Becky.

The main attraction of this film is the acting. Don’t be fooled by the marketing of the movie; Josh Harnett and Michael Imperioli appear briefly in Stuck Between Station, probably as a favor to someone to help get the movie made. Good for them for seeing the potential of the project and allowing their names to be used to help attract an audience. Sam Rosen and Zoe Lister-Jones, the real stars of the film, are both superb. Rosen brings a likable charm to Casper, making us root for him. Although he wears a wry smile throughout the movie, you can tell that he harbors some pain and that he’s struggling to keep it contained. Fortunately, he has a wonderful distraction in the form of Becky. As that character, Lister-Jones gives her strength and a world weariness that borders on cynicism. Yet, in reaching out to Casper, Becky finds some hope, and Lister-Jones manages to show Becky’s conflicted feelings with conviction.  The two actors play well off of each other and in the end make you really hope that they’ll find each other once again after Casper returns from his tour of duty.

Small movies like Stuck Between Stations regularly get lost once they’re released on DVD, and it’s up to word of mouth to get people to take notice and rent or buy them. I hope that you’ll take my fond feelings for the film into consideration and check it out.  It would be nice to see Kiernan get more opportunities to direct and to see Rosen and Lister-Jones have more exposure.

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Modine plays Louden Swain, a senior high school wrestler from Spokane, Washington, who drops two weight classes in order to take on the State‘s toughest wrestler. Louden’s reason for this huge undertaking is simply to prove to himself that he’s capable of greatness, even if it means bloody noses, fainting spells, thousands of sit-ups and push-ups, plus the scorn of his teammates. Louden’s dad is a down on his luck mechanic played by veteran character actor, Ronny Cox. Mr. Swain is divorced and still hasn’t gotten over his ex-wife leaving the family. When Mr. Swain defends a customer against the shady business dealings of his boss, he gets fired. That customer is a tough, independent twenty-year-old on her way to San Francisco named Carla (Fiorentino). With her car in the shop, she has no where to go. A smitten Louden convinces his pop to take her in as a boarder until she can leave town.

As you can imagine, the hormonal eighteen-year-old, Louden, can’t get the hottie living under his roof off of his mind. In one of the film’s funniest scenes, he comes upon Carla’s clean laundry and pulls out a pair of her underwear. Just as he’s sniffing it, she enters the room and grabs it from his hand. While half the film is dedicated to Louden’s training, the other half is devoted to the slow romance that develops between Louden and Carla. Eventually the two plots intersect as Louden’s love for her begins to become a distraction from his original goal. At some point, one or both of them must come to a decision as to whether Louden will continue on his path to greatness of taking on Shute (Frank Jasper), the bad ass three time wrestling champ.

In the tradition of the best coming of age stories, not everything works out in the end of Vision Quest. However, the conclusion is still fulfilling, the mark of any good movie. Modine is outstanding as Louden. He perfectly captures the complexity of being a teenager, in all its awkwardness, selfishness and angst. He’s also quite funny. He’s fortunate to have cast mates in Firoentino and Cox, as they compliment Modine superbly. Other great performances include those by Charles Hallahan, as Louden’s coach, Michael Schoeffling (“Jake” from Sixteen Candles) as Kuch, Louden’s friend, and Daphne Zuniga in a comic relief role (remember when she used to do comedy?)

This new release is the first time Vision Quest has been presented in the widescreen format. This surprises me, as famed cinematographer, Owen Roizman (Network, Tootsie, The Addams Family) was working behind the camera. What’s even more surprising about the film’s disappearance from the home video market is that the other folks behind the scenes were director Harold Becker (Taps, Sea of Love, Malice) and producers Jon Peters and Peter Guber (American Werewolf in London, Flashdance, Batman). As I mentioned, Vision Quest also has one of the best soundtracks from the era. Overseen by John Kalodner, music from the movie is a selection of some of the early 80′s best mainstream rock, such as John Waite’s “Change,” Red Rider’s “Lunatic Fringe” and Journey’s classic, “Only the Young.” Also notable is the inclusion of Madonna’s smash hit, “Crazy for You” (recorded specifically for the film.” Madge actually appears in Vision Quest, singing in a local dive bar (and looking completely out of place).

The Vision Quest DVD doesn’t come with any bells or whistles, customary with MOD services like Warner Archives. Still, in the case of a film like this one, fans of it are just going to be happy that they won’t have to pay an arm and a leg to own it.

Vision Quest on DVD is available through Warner Archives.

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Set in Oklahoma, 1987, the film opens with the pitch perfect harmonies of Pat Benatar’s “Shadows of the Night.” Any movie that chooses to feature classic Benatar scores points, in my book. We quickly learn that Temple (speaking in a twangy accent) is Danielle, the high school slut. She starts her days banging dudes in their muscle cars before entering the school grounds sporting huge sunglasses and a cigarette poised between her lips. Danielle’s outrageous behavior gets her booted out of her regular classes and placed in “challengers,” the room in the basement where all the “troubled kids” wind up. Danielle is a smart girl and her principal challenges her to straighten up so she can return to the normal kids. “No one likes a dirty girl,” he tells her.   No one likes a teenage boy whose openly gay, either; at least, not in the Reagan-era south. That’s why overweight, obviously gay, Clarke (Dozier) is also in the Challengers class.

Clarke and Danielle are immediately paired up in the old “bag of flour parenting experiment” and a friendship slowly begins to form. As we get to know Danielle better and we learn about the emptiness she has from never knowing her real father (she was born out of wedlock to a teenage mother ) and we start to understand why she swears, is abusive and sleeps around.  Clarke takes Danielle’s abuse because he’s friendless and will do anything to get out is house. At home, his mousy mother (Mary Steenburgen) stands by while her foolish husband (Dwight Yokam) tries to beat the gay out of his son.

Danielle’s mom (Milla Jovovich) is planning to marry Ray (William H. Macy) a strict Mormon with creepy kids, so the clock’s ticking before the hammer comes down and Danielle will have to conform. She thinks that if she can locate her real dad she can live with him. Clarke discovers the identity of Danielle’s real father and the two track him down in California. One thing leads to another and soon enough, Danielle and Clarke have hit the road in his father’s gas guzzling car.

Once the road trip begins, Dirty Girl veers into familiar territory; you can pretty much predict how it will end. Still, Sylvia peppers last act of his film with well executed poignant scenes and several surprises, some that I’ve never seen in a coming of age film before. One particular sweet, dream like sequence involves a male stripper, an abandoned drive-in and an acoustic version of The Outfield’s greatest hit.

Despite it’s flaws, I really liked this movie, in part because it really captured the essence of the films I grew up watching, and in part because there is a joy and musicality to the director’s point of view. While it’s not perfect, Dirty Girl has enough heart, humor and a couple of great performances to make it worth checking out.

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Fifteen year old Oliver Tate (Roberts) is a daydreaming, literate young man whose home life is on the edge. His father (Noah Taylor, Almost Famous) is a marine biologist who suffers from depression and his mom (Sally Hawkins, Happy-Go-Lucky) has a wandering eye for the self-help guru (Paddy Considine, In America) who has just moved in next door. Oliver fears for his parents’ marriage and keeps track of the number of times they are intimate by gauging whether the dimmer switch in their bedroom is at full illumination or a more romantic setting. His only distraction from home life is the girl he’s fallen for, Jordana Bevan (Paige), a spirited individual known for the distinct red coat she wears each day to school.

Oliver and Jordana begin hanging out as friends. Gradually, she falls for Oliver, although the young lady does her best to ignore his romantic gestures.  Oliver eventually wins her over with a sweetness and innocence that is refreshing compared to the rest of the hormone driven jerks at their school. As their relationship deepens, the one between Mr. and Mrs. Tate deteriorates. Like any loving son, Oliver would give anything to ensure that his parents remained together. Their happiness becomes his obsession, to the point that he nearly ruins things with Jordana.  As the Tates struggle to work things out, Oliver and Jordana must try and do the same because they really love each other. Submarine is insightful, tender and often quite hilarious. It’s a film that deserves a wider audience, an audience it will hopefully acquire now that it’s out on DVD and Blu-ray.

Ayoade has a subtle touch with his actors, bringing out natural, realistic performances, even from the most ridiculous characters (like Considine’s). His film style counters the naturalism of his performers. Using a variety of film stocks, some nifty camera work and editing techniques, this is one film that is a pleasure to watch just for its visuals. The DVD includes a well done behind the scenes featurette about the making of the film.

One final note. This film was rated ‘R,’ primarily for the language used by the teens in the film. Isn’t it time that the ratings board comes up with a new way to determine what films can been seen by teens under the age of 17? Submarine is yet another film that portrays adolescence in a sincere and realistic manner. It’s a shame that 15 and 16-year-olds who may be experiencing the same dilemmas that Oliver goes through could not see the film in theaters, as it was meant to be seen. I hope that the same teens who wander through the young adult sections of their libraries searching for a story that they can relate to pick up Sumbmarine on DVD.

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There’s no better example of this than the collection that comprises this DVD, a document of a show that, literally, came from the basement as the Dogs frequently do house concerts. Landing between the albums Nazarene Crying Towel and The Lost Cabin And The Mystery Trees, songs from the groups first album Scenic Routes intermingle with what would have been their most recent at the time of this recording, Mutt, which was a covers album, which covered material each bandmember had written and recorded with their other numerous bands. We’re talking about seven official albums at that juncture, and where usually at that point band members might have a bristling, subsurface disdain for each other (I’ve seen it in bands after three outings, much less seven) the core of the group shares a camaraderie more akin to family than bandmates.

The sound on the DVD is very good, and that has as much to do with the controlled area it was recorded in as it does with who recorded it (in this case, exec. producer Jeffrey Kotthoff and Jeff Elbel from the band Ping). The visuals, however, are pretty weird, but in a good way. At first it might be offputting to viewers to find how things were assembled, more like the presentation at a seedy drive-in showing a Roger Corman b-movie than a concert feature. There are jump cuts from song to song as opposed to the usual flow of a live recording, but once you’ve adapted to the eccentricities you can start to appreciate the fun all involved are having. Without these trappings, you would have had footage of the band playing a show in a basement. With this band, that’s all well and good but not visually dynamic (last time I checked, it’s still impossible to get a sweeping crane shot in a basement).

The songs, as hinted at before, include favorites like “Why Is The Devil Red?,” Americana-flavored rockers like “Bullet Train” and “A Certain Love” and the satirical fan favorite “Bad Indigestion” featuring this poignant lyric, “The God of our benefits is the great cornucopia, moves His great vegetable hand, puts a little fruit into all of our baskets, helps us function better in the can.”

For those who simply appreciate well-played tunes by seasoned pros who aren’t at each other’s throats or not simply doing it for a crass reunion check, It Came From The Basement is a solid hour of entertainment. For fans of the band, it’s required viewing.

It Came From The Basement is available from Lo-Fidelity Records in three purchase configurations (including audio soundtrack from the show as either a digital download or CD). You can find out more by visiting their Bandcamp page at:

http://thelostdogs.bandcamp.com/

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Forever Plaid the Movie features Sparky (Larry Raben), Smudge (David Engel), Jinx (Stan Chandler), and Frankie (Daniel Reichard) as the four Plaids. These first three guys have been involved with the show since its original performance 20 years ago, and Reichard was from the original cast of Jersey Boys, so these guys certainly know what they’re doing. The three original cast members look and sound just as good as they did way back when, and Reichard fits in well with them. The singing is wonderful and the characters are endearingly awkward, whether they’re cajoling Jinx (a guy prone to nosebleeds when he gets nervous) to sing the beautiful “Cry,” or attempting to perform “the entire Ed Sullivan Show in three minutes and eleven seconds.” As a former two time Sparky myself in our local community theatre (Forever Plaid in 2002 and the sequel Plaid Tidings in 2008), I have very strong feelings for this show and was thrilled to see this cast perform it.

With all that being said, I felt that the camera work was overdone. It didn’t seem like ten seconds went by without the shots going from a group shot to a close up to swooping down from the top to filming the audience behind the guys. This was a bit of a surprise considering the movie was directed by Stuart Ross, who conceived the original production. It’s almost like he wasn’t sure if he wanted to film this like a concert or a movie. I personally would have preferred this to be done more like a concert film, staying with a shot of the group most of the time with occasional close ups when needed. But if they wanted to go the movie route, they should have gone all out, showing Sparky as a kid listening to old records or seeing stepbrothers Sparky and Jinx watching The Ed Sullivan Show with their parents to go along with the stories they tell during the show. I think the show really works best without fancy camera tricks, just giving it to the performers to let them do their thing.

Extras on this DVD include a documentary about how the show came together 20 years ago, and how it was put together as a movie, as well as trailers and commercials for the movie and for the original show. As great as these inclusions are, I regret what was left out. When this was presented to movie theaters, there was a live post-show featuring the Plaids singing some songs not in the movie and even inviting Carol Channing up to sing with them. When I asked a representative of New Video as to why this footage wasn’t included on the DVD, I was told it was because of royalty costs. It’s still a shame that this stuff was left out, because it was great, although you can see some of that footage here. (I heard a rumor that the version of the DVD that was offered for pledging to Public Television stations has this footage on it, but that’s unconfirmed. The same source told me that an upcoming Blu-Ray release would have the footage, but my contact with the company says a Blu-Ray of the movie isn’t planned at this time.)

As a final assessment, I love this show and I do recommend it for the Plaids’ performances of these classic songs. I just wish I would have liked the way it was put together better.

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“The best fashion show is definitely on the street. Always has been, always will be.”

Though he is in his early 80s, New York Times photographer Bill Cunningham can, daily, be seen riding his bike around New York City, wearing his trademark blue jacket, snapping pictures of fashionable New Yorkers going about their business. He is at every Fashion Week show worth seeing, sitting front row and making decisions about which designs and designers get enough approval for him to lift his camera for a shot. He knows a trend-in-the-making when he sees one and has been responsible for helping break the careers of some of the most well-known designers in the world. He has been one of the most important fashion photographers in the business for decades and his story, as told in the wonderful documentary Bill Cunningham New York, which was just released on DVD via Zeitgeist Films, is an inspiring one.

To be photographed by Cunningham for his “On the Street” or “Evening Hours” columns in the Times is an honor for most New Yorkers, some of whom value his opinion about fashion above almost anyone. ”We all get dressed for Bill,” says Vogue editor Anna Wintour, who gushes enthusiastically about Cunningham and how much she adores him throughout the film.

Director Richard Press gives us a comprehensive look at the life of the revered photographer, through photographs, footage of Cunningham in action (filmed recently and in the 1980s), as well as revealing interviews with Cunningham and with New York style makers, friends, colleagues and fans — such as Wintour, Editta Sherman, Annette de la Renta, Howard Koda, Kim Hastreiter, Lesley Vinson, Annie Flanders, Carmen Dell’Orifice, Iris Apfel and Patrick McDonald.  In addition to chronicling his career, past and present, Press also gives us a fascinating look at the fight between the artists who, at the time the movie was filmed, lived in the studio spaces at Carnegie Hall — including Cunningham and Sherman —  and the city of New York, who wanted to, and eventually did, evict them from their homes in order to embark upon a massive renovation project.

If you missed seeing this film in the theater as I did (it only played in my city for, like, five minutes), it’s well worth your money to pick up the DVD, which is gorgeously packaged in a brightly-colored cardboard case laden with Cunningham’s photographs. In addition to the film itself, the DVD also includes 20 minutes of additional footage, the original U.S. theatrical trailer and a beautiful 12-page collector’s booklet, which features a statement from Press and more of Cunningham’s terrific photos.

Whether you’re a fan of fashion, photography, art, documentaries, or all of the above, I highly recommend you check this film out. It is definitely one of the best documentaries you’ll see all year.

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Aimee Teegarden, an emerging star whose pedigree includes Friday Night Lights, stars as Nova, an overachieving student in a Michigan high school who has just completed planning her upcoming prom. School has been Nova’s life for twelve years, leaving her little room for a boyfriend. Still, knowing that she’s put together the perfect prom for her fellow students gives her satisfaction. That, and the fact that she’s got a full ride to Georgetown waiting for her in the fall. Nova’s dream prom falls apart when the school storage barn burns to the ground, destroying everything she and the prom committee have been working on for months. With just a few weeks to spare, Nova wonders how she’ll ever put the prom back together, especially when her committee walks out on her. Enter Jesse (Thomas McDonell), the school bad boy with a heart. He’s a bad boy because he rides a motorcycle and argues with the principal. He has heart because he comes from a broken home and helps take care of his little brother. If I sound a touch sarcastic, I am. But I’m not the intended audience and my daughter certainly enjoyed this portion of the story.

Jesse and Nova are thrown together by the principal to redo the prom. Before you can mutter Ringwald and Nelson, these two opposites start to attract and fall in love. Of course, there are plenty of obstacles as they move along the path to the textbook ending, including Nova’s misguided father butting his head into her affairs. But really, did you think everything wasn’t going to work out?

Nova’s story is the primary plot, but Prom also follows the love lives of three other couples. Lucas (Nolan Sotillo) is an underclassmen who is head over heels for Simone (Danielle Campbell). These cute lovebirds seem destined for heaven, except that Simone has feelings for Tyler (De’Vaughn Nixon), the captain of the lacrosse team. Simone and Tyler kissed once, but then she found out he still had a girlfriend and told him to shove off. Throughout the movie, Tyler, a grade ‘A’ jerk, pursues Simone, even though she continues tells him “no.” When Tyler’s girlfriend breaks up with him (because he’s a cheating liar), Tyler convinces Simone to blow off Lucas and go to prom with him. Poor Lucas. Luckily he has his best friend, Corey (Cameron Monaghan), to lift him up.

Elsewhere, Mei (Yin Chang) struggles with telling her boyfriend, Justin (Jonathan Keltz), that their plans to attend the University of Michigan aren’t going to happen because she’s enrolled at a fashion school in New York. In one of the most non-Disney moments of the film, this couple, who have been together since the 8th grade, reach the adult decision to do their best to stay together, but if it doesn’t work out, they’ll always remain friends. As a parent, and as a dude who gave the old college try to a long distance relationship, I appreciated this message. Sometimes your first love is your only love, and other times there are other loves waiting for you. Not that I could discuss  this with my daughter because she would have told me to “shut up” and leave of the room.

Overall, Prom is light and innocent. The kids kiss, Jess gets into a fist fight (but no blood, strange) and almost everyone has decent values. I say almost everyone because Tyler is selfish and feels absolutely no regret for be irresponsible and causing the fire that nearly destroys the prom. The movie is cute and has a few laugh out loud moments for the grown ups who may see a little of themselves in the characters of the film.

The Blu-ray/DVD combo edition of the movie has plenty of bonus features (most of them on  the Blu-ray). Bloopers, deleted scenes and seven music videos are the best (the sondtrack, by the way, is very good), along with a featurette, “Putting on Prom,” which is informative and enjoyable. The Blu-ray also features the short, “Last Chance Lloyd,” which follows one of the characters as he tries to get a date for the prom.

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Harry Nilsson was a lot of things- genius singer-songwriter, Beatle friend, businessman, charismatic hell-raiser of legendary proportions, activist, loving family man- and this documentary manages to touch on all of the varied aspects of the man’s life and legacy. Through interview segments with a host of his surviving friends, collaborators and acquaintances- Richard Perry, Van Dyke Parks, Eric Idle, Jimmy Webb, Terry Gilliam, May Pang, Micky Dolenz, Yoko Ono, widow Una to name but a few- Scheinfeld paints a portrait of a man who left a legacy of contradictions as well as a career that could have/should have been much more than it turned out to be, but was no less remarkable for all that.

As a lifelong fan, I’ve responded to Nilsson on so many levels over the years- as a musician, who made some of the most clever and interesting music that I’d ever heard, which could be vulgar and sweet, crude and wistful- sometimes in the same song- and as a legendary partier, who hung with the Beatles and many other people that I admired, perhaps to his eventual detriment (though his surviving friends certainly do seem to still love him)…it was just so magnetic to me. Still, for all that I found out about him, it seemed like there was so much that was never revealed- why he didn’t work with Richard Perry, the producer with whom he made his most successful and arguably best records with, again after 1972′s Son of Schmilsson, why he let his career unravel after winning his Grammys in 1971, what he did after his semi-forced retirement, how the heck he could drink so much booze and do so many drugs and still be alive- and it wasn’t really until this documentary finally came out on DVD that I was able to get a lot of answers to my 30 year old questions.

It begins with a scene I’ll never forget because I was watching it happen live- Dustin Hoffman coming out onstage at the 1994 Comic Relief event broadcast and informing everyone that Harry had died, one day before my 34th birthday. From there, it goes on to several personal reminisces from different people, and goes on to examine his life and career not only through his friends, family and collaborators but in his own voice as well (he had been recording notes for a memoir). We find out about his father-abandonment issues, which he wrote about in such great early songs like “Daddy’s Song” and “1941″, how he got a toehold in the music business via the Monkees, the famous Beatle endorsement and subsequent friendship, his early Randy Newman-esque solo album efforts, Midnight Cowboy and “Everybody’s Talkin’” of course, and when he hit the top, with multiple Grammy awards, hit records, famous friends- he pulled back and withdrew in many ways, not believing himself worthy deep down inside and yet, contradictorily, determined to have his own way in every subsequent career decision he ever made, such as the notion to follow up his best-selling album with a jokey, inside-baseball pop music smorgasbord, the no-less-wonderful but daunting to those who don’t get the joke Son of Schmilsson- and then further derail his momentum by recording a remarkable album of 30′s and 40′s standards with Sinatra’s arranger and a full symphony orchestra, way ahead of his time and way beyond the ability of the average pop music fan in 1973 to process. It’s at this point where the 30 year old question I had about why Perry and Harry never recorded together again gets answered. All the notorious “Lost Weekend” party stories, with Lennon, Pang, Dolenz, Ringo (who declined to be interviewed for this doc; while understandable, it does make it seem a little incomplete), Keith Moon, and others are recounted with great humor and equal sadness at times. This is one of the few places you’ll see extended parts of the film he made with Ringo in 1974, the woefully bad, but no less fascinating “horror-musical-comedy” Son of Dracula as well as many clips from the aborted documentary that was made about the Son of Schmilsson sessions, Did Someone Drop His Mouse? (you can see that in sections on YouTube, by the way), and even a little-seen 1973 short film, Harry and Ringo’s Night Out. His subsequent career is lightly touched on, more on that later, as is his involvement in the Popeye movie and the 80′s all star Yoko Ono tribute album,  his film producer career, failed gun-control activism in the wake of his pal Lennon’s murder, sadly aborted comeback (when will SOMEONE finish those tapes and get them out?) and his family life, even featuring input from several of his children. It concludes with touching reminisces by Van Dyke Parks, Jimmy Webb, and finally Una that certainly got me a little misty, I’ll tell you that. But the account of the funeral, which took place at the same time as the 1994 Northridge earthquake and features Mark Hudson reminiscing about singing at Harry’s grave with George Harrison and others, is funny and bittersweet at the same time, appropriately enough since Harry’s music was often just like that.

It’s not perfect- Scheinfeld gives very short shrift to the music Harry made post-Pussy Cats; many of those releases are some of my favorites of the records he made. Of course, I know he only had so much time to play with, but I was disappointed. Some of the juxtapositions are unfortunate; in trying to get across the dubious proposal that somehow the songs from Son of were inferior to what had come before, we get some of the Mouse footage of Harry recording the blackly humorous “I’d Rather Be Dead” with a room full of senior citizens chiming in on massed group vocals as Perry laments how Harry wouldn’t listen to him about how he should be striving to follow up the more commercial bent of the preceding record, which makes Harry, conducting the choir in a party hat and tuxedo, look like a real buffoon. There are varying accounts of how Harry came to lose his voice during the Pussy Cats sessions; the liner notes of one of the CD releases cite an episode where Harry caught cold while sleeping on the beach, another presented here is a drunken screaming match between Harry and John early in the sessions; not only is this version treated like gospel, but the connection is made to the subsequent decline in his career due to the alleged loss of his singing voice; sure, he lost some range but still turned in some beautiful vocal performances on later records. I didn’t appreciate fine albums like Sandman and …That’s the Way It Is being tarred with the same dismissive brush, based on what I considered a dubious preposition. I was also a little annoyed to see so much Drop His Mouse? footage being used while the Nilsson Schmilsson sessions are being discussed. In general, there’s a subtle slant of “Harry’s music after 1971 was disappointing”, which I of course vehemently disagree with.  All in all, though, other than Harry’s widow Una’s unblinking stare during her interview sessions (She seems like a wonderful person, but geez, I wanted to step into the screen and hand her some Visine!), that’s about all the nits I can pick.

So, if I’ve piqued your interest at all, go here to view this film until the 19th of August.  Perhaps it’s because I’m such a fanatic about the subject matter, but I think it’s one of the best documentaries I’ve ever seen and I was moved in ways I wasn’t expecting at all. I hope you like it half as much as I did!

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