Given its subject – a chorus of old people who sing rock ‘n’ roll – and annoying title, “Young @ Heart” sounds like some ghastly “celebration of life.” But by the time 92-year-old Eileen Hall belts out the Clash’s anthem “Should I Stay or Should I Go,” I was pulled in.
Yes, there’s an inspirational side to this documentary focusing on rehearsals by a group of Massachusetts songbirds, average age 80, for a public performance. The film, however, doesn’t try to paint over the fragilities and fears that the members of the Young @ Heart Chorus have to face down. The autumn of life isn’t a happy-go-lucky time, but the singers show up for arduous practice sessions, sometimes using walkers or accompanied by oxygen tanks, and pour their creaky hearts into the likes of James Brown’s “I Got You (I Feel Good)” and Sonic Youth’s “Schizophrenia.”
The Pointer Sisters’ “Yes We Can Can” presents an especially steep learning curve – its 71 repetitions of “can” are a daunting challenge for at least one chorus member.
The group is the brainchild of musical director Bob Cilman, who runs the rehearsals with a generous spirit but also a noticeable lack of coddling. It’s all in the interest of therapy, and it appears to be very good medicine. And the fact that Cilman presses them to master Coldplay ditties rather than, say, “Ida, Sweet as Apple Cider,” makes it just that much more bracing.
Six weeks of rehearsals doesn’t seem like a long time for a vocal concert, but given the state of health of some of the singers, it’s a serious question as to whether they will all make it to the performance. By its nature, the chorus must frequently find new members. But it truly does give the singers a reason to live – this is especially clear when we watch Fred Knittle, born in 1925 and suffering from congestive heart failure, sit in a chair onstage and deliver a robust “Fix You.”
The film’s emotional peak comes at the end when the chorus performs for prison inmates who must be, on average, well under half the age of the singers. It’s a liberating experience, for both sides.
– Advisory: Some mild language and thematic elements.
- Walter Addiego
Documentary. By Morgan Spurlock. (PG-13. 136 minutes. At Bay Area theaters.)
It seems as if all of Morgan Spurlock’s documentaries are about Morgan Spurlock, which works out for the best most of the time. His fast-food movie “Super Size Me” and his contributions to the FX show “30 Days” are Spurlock-centric affairs, but there has always been a legitimate effort to entertain and inform the audience.
“Where in the World Is Osama bin Laden?” is a huge setback – a film so self-centered that even the director’s most dedicated stalkers might find it a bit too narcissistic. With plenty of self-imposed suffering but no convincing journey, the film seems contrived and, at times, extremely ill advised. His work here leans closer to Tyra Banks wearing her fat suit than anything directed by Errol Morris or even Michael Moore.
Set up as an exploration of Muslim culture in the post-Sept. 11 world, the real ambition seems to be putting the director in fish-out-of-water situations and repeating the same tired sight gag – Spurlock asking various people in the Muslim world if they know where bin Laden is hiding. Worse yet, Spurlock highlights the self-imposed hardships that come from traveling in dangerous places while his wife is about to give birth. The documentary offers few insights about the problems in the Middle East beyond the basic concepts that you probably knew already. (The situation in Israel is really complicated!)
It’s a shame that the movie goes nowhere, because Spurlock is a charismatic presence even in his subpar work. The same everyman quality that made “Super Size Me” so memorable works well when he’s taking a class to learn how to survive a grenade blast, or attempting to interview some Saudi students whose rehearsed answers would be funny, if the country didn’t have such a backward history on civil rights.
Spurlock’s stated reason for going is to find out what kind of world his child is going to live in, and much is made of the danger he’s putting himself in. He and his wife worry that he could miss his baby’s birth. While the risk in creating a documentary in which he would travel to Egypt, Israel and Afghanistan was no doubt serious, most of the dramatic tension is a tease. The musical score and editing will make you think an important shift in the narrative is about to occur, but nothing much happens in “Where in the World Is Osama Bin Laden?”
Perhaps that’s why Spurlock relies so heavily on animation and other computer graphics, including a fake video game where he fights bin Laden. No doubt more money was spent on visual effects than other documentarians’ budget for an entire feature. Some of these scenes are worth a quick laugh, but after a while, they look like more shiny objects to distract us from what’s missing.
– Advisory: Strong language and mature themes. If you’re planning to sneak food into the theater anyway, and you want to be really funny, be sure to bring a Big Mac value meal.
- Peter Hartlaub
Starring Jared Leto, Lindsay Lohan and Melissa Demyan. Directed by Jarrett Schaefer. (R. 84 minutes. At the Sundance Kabuki Cinemas in San Francisco.)
Why would anyone make a movie like “Chapter 27,” the grim story of Mark David Chapman, the man who killed John Lennon? There are no sympathetic characters – Lennon barely exists in the movie – and everybody knows the unhappy ending before the lights in the theater go out.
That said, actor Jared Leto is utterly convincing as the pathetic creep who stood outside Lennon’s Manhattan home for three days waiting for a chance to get an autograph and then kill the man whose music he so admired. Leto is a tremulous mass of tics and sneers. Leto, who played a shriveled heroin addict in “Requiem for a Dream,” put on 60 pounds to play the part and rolls around on his bed, his distended belly heaving, in his underwear.
First-time screenwriter-director Jarrett Schaefer plumbed the more than 200 hours of interviews conducted by Son of Sam journalist Jack Jones with Chapman in Attica Prison for his 1992 book, “Let Me Take You Down,” to create a detailed portrait of Chapman’s troubled inner life told in the film as a voice-over.
The film is impressively mounted and Schaefer has made a directorial debut of distinction, but it is an uncomfortable ride from the opening scenes of Chapman arriving in New York to the inevitable, inexorable final scene. Lindsay Lohan, of all people, plays the only other important role as another lost Beatles fan hanging outside the Dakota who (sort of) befriends Chapman.
- Joel Selvin
Documentary. Directed by Brad and John Hennegan. (Not rated. 100 minutes. At the Opera Plaza in San Francisco and Shattuck Cinemas in Berkeley.)
In horse racing, the Kentucky Derby is considered by most the jewel of the Triple Crown. It’s also a difficult road each year to qualify 20 of 40,000 beautiful 3-year-old thoroughbreds for the Run for the Roses.
“The First Saturday in May,” the title’s origin coming from the day on which the race is run, takes a look at six trainers, their staff and their horses on a 16-month journey as they aim to qualify for the 2006 trip to Churchill Downs.
By coincidence, directors Brad and John Hennegan, in their first full-length film, picked the year that Barbaro would win the Derby. To their credit, not until the end of the movie do they play up the horse’s tragic but heroic battle to stay alive after a terrible injury at the Preakness Stakes, the second leg of the Triple Crown.
Instead, the two stick to their original premise of tracking all the horses and trainers’ ups and downs while showing how diverse a group one can find in the horse-racing business. The trainers include a noble and proud quadriplegic in Southern California, a homegrown Kentucky guy having a good ol’ time, a tough-talking New Yorker, a humble trainer who has been diagnosed with a nerve disease and goes to Dubai to train horses, a 73-year-old gentleman from Arkansas who, with his loyal groom, thinks they finally have found the horse that can bring them glory, and Barbaro’s Olympic equestrian trainer from Florida.
The willingness of the subjects to be filmed candidly and their frankness in the interviews keep the movie from straying into a history lesson of horse racing.
Unless you’re a true aficionado, you won’t be sure about who will or won’t qualify for the Derby, except for Barbaro. And there are surprises along the way. But in this case, the story isn’t just about the result, but rather a look at lives and hopes that are part of our American culture.
– Advisory: Some foul language and reliving the pain of Barbaro.
- Leba Hertz
Documentary. Directed and produced by Phil Donahue and Ellen Spiro. (Not rated. 87 minutes. At the Clay Theatre in San Francisco and Shattuck Cinemas in Berkeley.)
“Body of War” joins the growing mass of excellent, disturbing and achingly sad documentaries about the Iraq conflict. Subtitled “The True Story of an Anti-War Hero,” the film, directed by TV host Phil Donahue and Ellen Spiro, follows 25-year-old Tomas Young, who came home from Iraq in April 2004 paralyzed from the chest down.
Young was among the first responders to 9/11. Two days after the twin towers came down, the Kansas City resident saw President Bush on television promising revenge and called his local Army recruiter. He assumed that he would fight in Afghanistan but ended up in Sadr City, where one month into his service he was shot above the left collarbone while riding in an unarmored humvee with no covering. The bullet severed his spine, instantly paralyzing him.
“Body of War” is very much about Young’s body. We first meet him at home in bed struggling to get on a pair of jeans. There is footage of his mother sticking a tube into his penis so he can urinate and long takes of him and his wife discussing their largely failed efforts to have intercourse. Young suffers from near-constant pain (he takes dozens of pills daily) and cannot regulate his body temperature. Donahue and Spiro make Young’s body a metaphor for the United States’ dysfunctional, destructive engagement in Iraq.
But Young is a willing participant. For if there is meaning and pleasure in his civilian life, it is in his role as an anti-war activist. “If my situation can teach people anything,” he says, “it is: Do not make impetuous decisions. … Do not rush into the future.” The most compelling scenes are of Young’s participation in anti-war rallies and testimonials. We witness him become a talented public speaker, with a wry sense of humor and a message that he burns to impart.
The film will make you cry and hate politicians. Young’s story is interspersed with the October 2002 congressional deliberations to grant President Bush authority to invade Iraq. In case you didn’t get enough of the smoking gun and Hitler references, or forgot how few of our elected officials opposed the rush to war, this is your chance. It is also a chance to witness the struggles of a remarkable young man. Young may be paralyzed in the body, but his mind is fiercely alive.
The directors will appear after the 4:45 p.m. Saturday screening at the Clay and after the 4:50 p.m. Sunday show at Shattuck Cinemas.
– Advisory: Not appropriate for children.
- Tamara Straus
Drama. Starring Tony Leung Ka Fai, Bingbing Fan and Elaine Jin. Co-written and directed by Li Yu. In Mandarin with English subtitles. (Not rated. 112 minutes. At the 4 Star in San Francisco.)
Maybe “Lost in Beijing” is lost in translation, but this sordid Chinese melodrama, about a massage parlor owner who may or may not have impregnated one of his employees and is blackmailed by her husband, begins with a wild coincidence and goes rapidly downhill from there, becoming one of the most unintentionally hilarious tragedies in quite some time.
Shown in a more risque version – with some nudity, language and other strong stuff – not shown in China, it begins when Lin Dong (the always reliable Tony Leung Ka Fai) takes advantage of the drunken Ping Guo (Bingbing Fan). Amazingly, her husband, An Kun (Dawei Tong), a window washer, just happens to witness their tryst. An Kun goes for blackmail, but when Ping Guo becomes pregnant, Lin Dong surprises everyone by confessing his affair to his wife (Elaine Jin) and offering the young couple a lot more than the blackmail money to let him and his wife adopt the baby. Meanwhile, An Kun has begun an affair with Lin Dong’s wife to get back at him, and then … OK, that’s enough.
Li Yu, one of the very few female directors in China, has a game cast to work with, but her characters make no sense; they seemed designed to fit whatever loopy plot twist she has devised in this soapiest of soap operas. Possibly, her home audience might have better related to her characters’ attempts to negotiate China’s shift in social values during its rapid economic expansion. Here, in the United States, they just seem young and restless.
Pretty pictures of Beijing, though.
– Advisory: Nudity and strong language.
- G. Allen Johnson
