The Film of 2024: Lola (dir by Nicola Peltz Beckham)

Posted on May 3, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Lola (Nicola Peltz Beckham) works her days working in a convenience store and her nights dancing at a strip club. It’s not enjoyable work but she’s trying to raise money so that she can enroll her little brother, Arlo (Luke David Blumm) in a special arts school in Dallas. At present, Arlo is being homeschooled by their religious fanatic mother, Mona (Virginia Madsen). Heavy-drinking Mona throws a fit whenever she sees Arlo putting on makeup or wearing a dress but she doesn’t do a thing about the way her boyfriend (Trevor Long) leers at Lola. She’s the type who gives people doughnuts with “God” written in icing.

Lola thinks that it is a film about poor people but actually, it isn’t. Written by, directed by, and starring the daughter of billionaire Nelson Peltz, Lola is less a film about poor people and more a film about what rich people think being poor is like. As such, everyone smokes and everyone lives in either a trailer or a one-story house but the inside of those houses are perfectly lit and not the least bit cluttered. Lola may have to work two jobs and she may be hooked on cocaine but her hair and her makeup are always perfect. Lola’s homelife may not be perfect but, as all poor white girls do in movies like this, she has a super-loyal Black friend (Raven Goodwin) who doesn’t appear to have a life outside of obsessing on Lola’s problems. Lola also has a dumbass boyfriend (played by Richie Merritt, the star of White Boy Rick) who keeps her supplied with cocaine but who also gets upset when Lola says she’s not ready to lose her virginity to him.

The film follows Lola from one trauma to another. We’re supposed to sympathize with her because her life is so bad but the film itself doesn’t seem to realize that Lola is often her own worst enemy. For instance, knowing that she cannot afford to lose her job at the convenience store, she still tries to steal from the store in the most obvious way possible. When she gets caught, her boss fires her. Even when she offers to get the stolen stuff out of her locker (seriously, she put it in her locker?), her boss tells her that she’s fired. The film sets this up as if the boss is somehow being unfair but actually, he’s doing what any boss would do to an employee stealing products from his shelf. He has every right to fire her and if he didn’t, he would basically be inviting everyone else who works for him to steal from him as well. Losing the job sends Lola into a spiral of depression and desperation but again, it was her own fault so how sorry am I supposed to feel for her?

Eventually, there is a tragedy. It’s not great shock when it happens but it does lead to scene of Lola sobbing while portentous string music playing on the soundtrack. Much like everything else in the film, the music choice is so obvious and heavy-handed that it’s more like to inspire a chuckle than a tear. The right to portentous string music is something that a movie has to earn. Requiem For A Dream earned Lux Aeterna. Lola is no Requiem For A Dream.

Instead, Lola has more in common with Ryan Gosling’s directorial debut, Lost River. Both Lola and Lost River are films about poverty that try way too hard to be profound. The difference is that Lola lacks the spark of madness that made Lost River interesting, albeit incoherent. That said, I do think that Nicole Peltz Beckham does have some talent as a director. There are a few impressive shots to be found in Lola, even if Beckham doesn’t really seem to yet understand how to use them to tell a compelling story. But with some experience and a script written by someone other than herself, Nicole Peltz Beckham seems like she has the potential to be a worthwhile director.

Sudden Death (1977, directed by Eddie Romero)

Posted on May 3, 2024 by Jedadiah Leland

Ed Neilson (Ken Metcalf) is a business executive who just wants to spend the weekend grilling with his family but then a bunch of gunmen show up and, in a surprisingly violent sequence that even shows children being shot in slow motion, massacre his entire family.

Ed barely survives and begs his old friend, a former CIA agent named Duke Smith (Robert Conrad), to find out who murdered his family. Duke would rather hang out on the beach with his wife (Aline Samson) and daughter (Nancy Conrad) and he refuses to help Ed. But then Ed gets blown up in his car and Duke and his former partner (Felton Perry) come out of retirement to get justice. Duke’s investigation leads to a corrupt businessman (Thayer David), a murderous government official (John Ashley, who also produced), and a ruthless hitman (Don Stroud).

Filmed in The Philippines and directed by Eddie Romero, Sudden Death is a violent and brutal thriller with a twisty the plot that is nearly impossible to follow. It seems like a lot of killing for no particular reason. The thing that sets Sudden Death apart from other action films is its willingness to violently kill off anyone, regardless of age, gender, or relative innocence. The 70s was a decade known for downbeat endings but, even by the standards of that decade, Sudden Death‘s ending is shockingly abrupt and bleak. In the lead role, Robert Conrad shows off the ruthless intensity that made him the most feared of all of the coaches on Battle of the Network Stars.

Originally, the sidekick role was offered to Jim Kelly. When Kelly dropped out, the role was given to the far more laid back Felton Perry. I think if Kelly had stayed with the film, it would probably be a cult classic today. Instead, it’s an obscurity that reminds us of how bleak even exploitation films were in the 70s.

The Films of 2024: The Bricklayer (dir by Renny Harlin)

Posted on May 2, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Someone is assassinating commie journalists in Europe and making it appear as if the CIA is responsible. O’Malley (Tim Blake Nelson) of the CIA suspects that the assassin is Michael Radek (Clifton Collins, Jr.), a former intelligence asset who faked his own death but who has now returned and is seeking vengeance on the Agency for the death of his wife and daughter. O’Malley decides that Radek’s friend and former CIA handler, Steve Vail (Aaron Eckhart), is the only man who can track Radek down.

The problem is that Vail is as disillusioned with intelligence work as Radek. Vail walked away from the Agency years ago and now spends his time listening to jazz and working as a bricklayer. Vail explains that, when working with bricks, everything is predictable and everything fits together perfectly. It’s the opposite of the chaotic world of spies and assassinations. O’Malley think that Vail is full of crap and I would be tempted to agree if not for the fact that Aaron Eckhart is one of the few actors who can make you believe anything that he says.

At first, Vail refuses to help but then Radek sends a group of assassins to kill him. That changes Vail’s mind. Along with an inexperienced supervisor named Kate (Nina Dobrev), Vail heads to Greece to not only track down Radek but also discover the identity of a mole in the CIA.

The Bricklayer was advertised as being a return-to-form of sorts for director Renny Harlin. In many ways, it’s a typical Harlin film. For the most part, it looks good. Some of the action scenes are exciting. A car flips over and explodes. At the same time, it never quite reaches the heights of Harlin’s heyday. This film has neither the grandeur of Die Hard 2, the romantic sparks of The Long Kiss Goodnight, or the energy of Deep Blue Sea. The film’s low-budget is definitely a factor in that. There are scenes in the film that look about as cheap as some of the movies that Bruce Willis was making before he announced his retirement.

That said, The Bricklayer does what it does with efficiency and Renny Harlin still knows how to keep the action moving. Though the story is a bit too familiar to really be intriguing, Aaron Eckhart makes for a surprisingly believable secret agent. One thing I especially liked about Eckhart’s performance is that he didn’t go for the “grim” stereotype of the former intelligence agent. As played by Aaron Eckhart, Steve Vail may have had his regrets but he wasn’t some sort of emotionless zombie. He enjoyed jazz. He enjoyed the work that he did as a bricklayer. Though the rules of the genre demand that he and Nina Dobrev start the film as mild adversaries, they quickly developed a likable chemistry.

The Bricklayer is the epitome of an okay, middle of the road movie. It’s neither good nor bad enough to be especially memorable but it’s entertaining enough if you’ve got 100 minutes to kill.

Paper Lion (1968, directed by Alex March)

Posted on May 2, 2024 by Jedadiah Leland

Writer George Plimpton (Alan Alda) is a Park Avenue sophisticate who practices “participatory” journalism. He has already written about pitching in an exhibition all-star game and getting knocked out by Sugar Ray Robinson. He is having trouble coming up with his next stunt until he goes to Central Park and plays a touch football game with his girlfriend Kate (Lauren Hutton) and his editor, Oscar (David Doyle). Oscar sees George throwing the ball and decides that George should write about going to a professional football team’s training camp as a player.

George, who fantasizes about throwing the game-winning touchdown, is enthusiastic. Most of the teams that George approaches are less enthusiastic but finally, the Detroit Lions agree to sign him as a quarterback. Once the other players realize that George is a writer and not a professional athlete, there’s a lot of resentment. As Guard John Gordy (playing himself) puts it, he could easily get injured while protecting an inexperienced quarterback like George. George can always go back to Park Avenue but, for the rest of the players, the game is their life and they don’t like the idea of some outsider coming in and treating it all like a joke. At first, only the fearsome defender Alex Karras (also playing himself) is willing to support George but eventually, George’s refusal to give up wins over the rest of the team. They even let him score a touchdown during practice.

When the preseason begins, George waits for his opportunity to take the field. How many yards can he lose in three plays?

Paper Lion is based on a true story. In 1963, George Plimpton did attending training camp and play a scrimmage for the Lions and he later wrote a book about the experience. The movie changes the time period from ’63 to ’67 so that all of the then-members of the Lions could play themselves. (Though Karras was a friend of Plimpton’s, he was actually suspended during the 1963 season and, unlike in the movie, never joined Plimpton on the practice field.) The film plays Plimpton’s football career largely for laughs, celebrating every guy’s fantasy of being a sports star while also showing why it’s probably best to leave the actual game to the professionals. Alan Alda doesn’t imitate Plimpton’s famous Mid-Atlantic accent but he does capture the excitement of a man getting to live out his fantasy.

Paper Lion was made with the full cooperation of the NFL and a good deal of the film’s final third is made up footage that was shot for an actual game. Seen today, it’s interesting to see how positively Paper Lion portrays both the game and its players and to contrast it with how the game is usually portrayed today. There’s no talk of steroids or fears of multiple concussions. All of the players are clean-cut, friendly, witty, and helpful. Even the training camp hazing is all done is good fun. Paper Lion introduces us to the nicest people in the world and they’re all football players!

Documentary Review: Lock-Up: The Prisoners of Rikers Island (dir by Jon Alpert and Nina Rosenblum)

Posted on May 2, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Rikers Island is one of those places that we all know about, even those of us who have never been there.

Rikers Island is an island that sits in the East River in the Bronx. It is also home to New York City’s largest and most notorious jail. It’s a jail that has a reputation for violence and corruption. Over 100,000 people are admitted into Rikers per year and, on most days, the complex has a population of 10,000 prisoners. (For comparison, my mom was born in a town that currently has a population of 1,200.) Rikers Island is notorious for the number of prisoners who have died while in the jail. It is estimated that 85% of the inmates are pre-trial defendants, people who have yet to be convicted of anything but who either didn’t get or couldn’t afford bail. The other 15% are serving short sentences. Rikers Island is a county jail that has a reputation for being as bad as any state prison. You don’t have to be from New York City to know about Rikers Island. The jail has become so notorious that Rikers Island has developed an international reputation and is often held up as a symbol of everything that’s wrong with the way that incarceration is handled.

Lock-Up: The Prisoners of Rikers Island was filmed for and aired on HBO in 1994. The documentary is now 30 years old and the population of the jail has grown considerably since it first aired. That’s a frightening thought because the jail that is seen in the documentary was already overcrowded, dirty, and dangerous. The documentary features interviews with both guard and prisoners. We follow the guards as they search cells and confiscate weapons and drugs. We meet a prisoner who has AIDS and who is hoping to be transferred to a drug rehab. (He explains that he was born addicted and he’ll probably die addicted if he’s left in Rikers.) We meet several of the pregnant women who are incarcerated in the jail and listen as they wonder what would happen if they went into labor when there’s not a guard around. We watch as the guards uneasily deal with the prisoners who have asked to be incarcerated in the jail’s “gay wing.” We meet several inmates who are obviously dealing with untreated mental illness. A lawyer tries to talk to his client and gets in a shouting match with another prisoner. We meet a notorious criminal named Eddie White, who explains that a life sentence means that he no longer has to follow the rules. We meet a lot of people in this documentary and what they all agree on is that being locked up is Hell.

It’s hardly a balanced documentary. The filmmakers are clearly on the side of the inmates but that’s okay. Considering that the inmates have essentially no control over their own lives while they’re in Rikers, it can be argued that they deserve to have someone on their side. Most of the inmates talk about their regrets but, as the documentary ruefully observes, most of them will eventually end up returning to Rikers even after they’re released. One woman cries when she learns her baby might be ill but, when we see her during her second stint at Rikers, she blithely comments that her baby was taken away by “the city.” As with so many inmates, she explains that she was set free with no training as to how to remain free. As an addict, she has discovered the system is more interesting in punishing her addiction than treating it.

The biggest problem with the criminal justice system is that it rarely rehabilitates but instead creates a situation where no one can get or take advantage of a second chance. 30 years after it was released, Lock-Up reminds us that this is hardly a new problem.

The Films of 2024: Shirley (dir by John Ridley)

Posted on May 1, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

In 1972, a New York Congressperson named Shirley Chisholm made history when, in January of that year, she announced that she would be a candidate for the Democrat presidential nomination. Chisholm, who had already made history when she became the first Black woman to be elected to Congress, was also the first Black woman to run for a major party’s presidential nomination.

(For the record, U.S. Senator Margaret Chase Smith of Maine and the Rev. Channing Phillips were, respectively, the first woman and the first Black to run for a major party’s presidential nomination. Smith lost the Republican nomination to Barry Goldwater in 1964. In 1968, Phillips was the first Black to have his name officially put into nomination at a major party political convention.)

Of course, Chisholm did not win in 1972. She was one of many liberal candidates who declared that they were running as an alternative to the presumed front runner, U.S. Sen. Edmund Muskie. When Muskie’s campaign stalled in New Hampshire, it was George McGovern (and not Shirley Chisolm, John Lindsay, Eugene McCarthy, or Fred Harris) who benefitted. For the most part, the media viewed Chisholm as being a protest candidate, one who had a small but loyal activist base but which couldn’t compete with candidates like McGovern and Hubert Humphrey. Still, Chisholm went into the convention with a handful of delegates and, with McGovern not having enough pledged delegates to win outright, it was expected that Shirley Chisholm would at least be able to get some concessions from him in return for her support.

Political conventions being what they are, things didn’t work out that way. Due to several backroom deals, George McGovern was able to secure the nomination during the first round of voting. McGovern went on to suffer a landslide defeat and for years, his general election campaign would be held up as an example of how not to run for President. Chisholm returned to the U.S. Congress, where she served for another ten years.

Featuring Regina King in the title role, Shirley is a dramatization of that primary campaign. In many ways, it’s a typical Netflix docudrama. It’s well-made and it’s tasteful and occasionally, it’s a little bit boring. Political junkies will enjoy it, particularly if they’ve studied the 1972 presidential election. My inner history nerd was thrilled as largely forgotten historical figures were casually mentioned in the dialogue. Who would have guessed that a film released in 2024 would have featured characters talking about the presidential campaigns of Sam Yorty, John Lindsay, and Walter Fauntroy? Sadly, no mention is made of Patsy Mink. While Shirley Chisholm was making history as the first Black woman to run for president, U.S. Rep. Patsy T. Mink of Hawaii was doing the same as the first Asian-American woman to run.

It’s an uneven film, one that takes it time getting started. Filmmaker John Ridley is a better writer than director. Some of the scenes, like the ones of Chisholm mentoring a young Barbara Lee (Christina Jackson), felt a bit too much on the nose. (That said, Barbara Lee did start her career as a volunteer with the Chisholm campaign and, while in Congress, she regularly cited Chisholm as an inspiration.) But then there were other scenes that worked wonderfully, like Chisholm visiting segregationist George Wallace (W. Earl Brown) after Wallace had been shot. The film is at its best when it reaches the Democrat Convention and Chisholm goes from being elated to disappointed as one of her strongest allies goes from supporting her to announcing that it’s time for all the black delegates to line up behind McGovern. Regina King’s performance, especially towards the end of the film, captures both Shirley Chisholm’s strength and her vulnerability. It’s not always easy being a trailblazer.

Finally, if you want to learn more about Shirley Chisholm’s 1972 presidential campaign, I suggest the 2005 documentary, Shirley Chisholm ’72: Unbought and Unbossed.

Meet Wally Sparks (1997, directed by Peter Baldwin)

Posted on May 1, 2024 by Jedadiah Leland

Wally Sparks (Rodney Dangerfield) is a talk show host with a program that is so raunchy that even Jerry Springer says, “At least this isn’t The Wally Sparks Show!”

Despite being a huge hit amongst teens and college students, the show is on the verge of being canceled by the head of the network, Mr. Spencer (Burt Reynolds, wearing a fearsome toupee). He is tired of Wally’s antics and he tells Wally and his producer, Sandy Gallo (Debi Mazar), that they have a week to make the show respectable.

Wally doesn’t know what to do. Wally Sparks act respectable? Wally’s a guy who don’t get no respect, no respect at all. Then Sandy finds a letter inviting Wally to attend a party at the home of Georgia Governor Floyd Patterson (David Ogden Stiers), a noted critic of the show. Hoping to get the interview that will save the show, Wally and Sandy head down south.

At the party, Wally acts like Wally and scandalizes all of the politicians and socialites. He also shares a bottle of whiskey with a horse and then rides the horse through the mansion. The party is a disaster but, after Wally claims that he can’t walk because of a spinal injury he suffered when he fell off the horse, the Governor allows him to recuperate in the mansion. Wally causes more chaos while also teaching the Governor’s wife (Cindy Williams) how to play strip poker and eventually exposing a scheme to blackmail the Governor into building a Confederate-themed amusement park.

Rodney Dangerfield playing a talk show host sounds like a great idea and there are a lot of talented people to be found in Meet Wally Sparks. Debi Mazar is an actress who should have appeared in a lot more movies and she and Rodney Dangerfield make a good team. The movie actually gets off to a funny start, with a montage of actual talk show hosts talking about how much they hate Wally Sparks and his show. Gilbert Gottfried has a cameo as a manic guest and Wally repeats some of Rodney Dangerfield’s classic jokes.

Unfortunately, the movie starts to fall apart as soon as Burt Reynolds threatens to cancel the show for being too lowbrow. No network executive has ever threatened to cancel a show that’s bringing in the ratings, regardless of how lowbrow it might be. Things get even worse after Wally goes to Atlanta and ends up staying there. The movie tries to recreate the Snobs vs. the Slobs dynamic of previous Dangerfield films but the Governor comes across as being such a decent man that there’s no joy to be found in watching his life get turned upside down. The movie has a surprisingly large number of subplots, including one about Wally’s son (Michael Weatherly) falling for the Governor’s daughter (Lisa Thornhill), but most of them go nowhere and just distract from the man who should have been the film’s main attraction, Rodney Dangerfield. By the end of the movie, even the usually irrepressible Dangerfield seems to have been neutered.

Rodney Dangerfield was a national treasure but Meet Wally Sparks was not the best showcase for his persona or his style of humor. Fortunately, Caddyshack and Back To The School are available to watch anytime that we need a good laugh and we want to show Rodney Dangerfield a little respect.

The Eric Roberts Collection: The Savant (dir by Sherri Kauk)

Posted on May 1, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

I swear, I will sit through the worst films for the promise of an Eric Roberts cameo.

Roberts is only featured in about two minutes of 2019’s The Savant. According to the credits, he was playing a character named Lonnie. At one point, he called the film’s hero, police officer Nick Tantino (Frank Giglio), and had a nonsensical conversation with him while he was arresting a random person. I’m not really sure who Lonnie was supposed to be and the scene had very little to do with the film’s story. In fact, the scene just randomly occurred. I’m going to guess that the film needed to be padded out and someone said, “Let’s call Eric Roberts and add another name to the cast.”

Eric Roberts is not the only familiar face to show up in the film.

Martin Kove plays a literature professor who is also a sensei. One of his former students, an evil District Attorney named Zane Carroll (played by Eric Etebari), calls him for advice.

Former TV actress Joyce DeWitt plays a detective. Her partner, who tells a lot of bad jokes, is played by comedian and former Howard Stern flunky, Jackie Martling.

Veteran genre actress Julie McCullough plays a judge, who screams at a defense attorney.

Thomas G. Waites, who was one of The Warriors, plays a police chief.

Robert Loggia shows up as Dr. Reno, a psychiatrist who bellows at everyone and who explains how the savant mind works. Of all the “names” in the film, Loggia gets the most screentime. Interestingly enough, Loggia died in 2015 and The Savant was released four years later. I’m not sure when The Savant was actually filmed but considering how messy the film is and how many plot points are brought up and then abandoned and also the fact that the characters often look totally different from scene-to-scene, I’m going to guess shooting went on for a while.

As for the film, it’s about an autistic savant named Anthony (Miguel Jarquin-Moreland) who beats up a bully. Nick, who has been assigned to work as a glorified security guard at Anthony’s high school, takes Anthony under his wing and trains him to be a MMA fighter. It turns out that the secret of communicating with Anthony is to speak to him in Spanish so we get several scenes of Nick calling him a “pendejo” in order to get Anthony to fight. The entire film builds up to a cage match between Anthony and his bully just for Nick to suddenly cancel the match and instead enter the ring to fight Zane, who is not just a district attorney but also the sensei of his own karate school.

Zane is determined to not only defeat Nick in the ring but to also destroy Nick’s career by telling the police about the time that Nick killed two men in Italy. The murders are not in the record because, according to Zane, they happened “before we had international law.” What? Anyway, Zane decides to create a false criminal record for Nick because Zane is jealous over the fact that Nick is falling in love with Anthony’s sister, a defense attorney named Cassy (Suzy Kaye). Zane even sleeps with Nick’s ex-wife to get revenge. Seriously, I love the fact that Zane is both a prosecutor and a sensei. I mean, how does he find the time?

There’s a lot of plot in this movie. None of it really makes sense but it’s hard not be amused at just how incoherent it all is. The film is full of random and seemingly unrelated scenes, like a lengthy sequence where a defense attorney argues that his client, a doctor, was performing euthanasia when he shot three heroin addicts in the head. “Free Dr. Clark!” the courtroom crowd chants. (Of course, Dr. Clark is never again mentioned after this scene. The shouts of “Free Dr. Clark” brought to mind the “Free Hat!” episode of South Park.) The Savant plays out like a fever dream, one that dares you to try to make sense of it all.

Well, good luck with that. I could sit here and spending hours write about all of the film’s plot holes. But what’s important is that this film featured a lot of Robert Loggia yelling and about two minutes of Eric Roberts. Plan accordingly.

Previous Eric Roberts Films That We Have Reviewed:

The TSL Grindhouse: Jailbait (dir by Jared Cohn)

Posted on May 1, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

First released in 2014, Jailbait tells the story of Anna Nix (Sara Malakul Lane).

Anna is a teenager who loves to play the cello, largely because it allow her a mentally escape from her abusive homelife. When her stepfather sexually assaults her, Anna pushes him back and he ends up hitting his head on a wall and promptly dying. After her own mother testifies that Anna is lying about the abuse she suffered at the hands of her stepfather, Anna is sent to a juvenile prison.

Warden Frank Baragan (Steve Hanks) has a quick smile and a dorky sense of humor and he might seem earnest and supportive when he tries to encourage Anna to play her cello at the prison talent show but he quickly reveals himself to be as much of a perv as Anna’s stepfather. Warden Frank is willing to help Anna but only if she does things for him. (You can guess what things.) And, even when Anna complies, Frank makes it clear that there’s no way he’s going to support her efforts to get parole.

There’s a lot to deal with in this prison. Anna’s cellmate, the well-meaning Genie (Jennifer Robyn Jacobs), may love her but Genie can only provide so much support. Meanwhile, gang leader Kody (Erin O’Brien) provides Anna with protection but only as long as Anna follows orders. (Kody even forces Anna to get a tattoo identifying her as being a part of the gang.) As soon as Anna tries to get away from Kody, she finds herself targeted. Anna soon starts smoking and then injecting drugs, becoming an addict who is continually sent to the dark, dirty, and vermin-infested isolation cells, where no clothing is allowed. (Yuck! If I was ever on one of those Scared Straight shows, all of that would be enough to keep me out of prison.) Will Anna be able to survive long enough to not only impress the other prisoners with her cello skills but also to expose the corrupt warden?

Released by The Asylum, Jailbait hits all of the usual women-in-prison movie beats. It’s definitely a sordid film, one of those movies where everyone somehow still looks good despite living in a filthy prison and only getting to take a shower once or twice a week. (Occasionally, someone will get a smudge of dirt on their face but considering the amount of time that many of the characters spend locked away naked in a filthy cell, everyone still looks remarkably clean and healthy.) That said, Jailbait was still better than I was expecting, largely due to the performance of Sara Malakul Lane, who didn’t let the fact that she was starring in an exploitation film keep her from giving a fully committed performance. She gets strong support from Jennifer Robyn Jacobs, Erin O’Brien, and especially Steve Hanks. (Oh, how you will hate the Warden!) Director Jared Cohn is a veteran when it comes to directing on a low budget and he keeps the action moving quickly.

Don’t get me wrong, of course. The film has its flaws. I’ve read a few comments online from some people who felt that the cello scenes were not convincing. I’ve never played the cello so, to be honest, I really wouldn’t know. But, with all that in mind, this film is far better than I would expect any film called Jailbait to be.

Concert Film Review: Pink Floyd: Live At Pompeii (dir by Adrian Melben)

Posted on May 1, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The summer after I graduated high school, I took a trip to Italy.

I absolutely loved it. There’s nothing more wonderful than being 18 and irresponsible in one of the most beautiful and romantic countries in Europe. I also loved it because everywhere I looked in Italy, I saw the remains of history. When I was in Rome, I visited the Colosseum. When I was in Southern Italy, I visited Comune di Melissa, the village where some of my ancestors once lived. When I visited Florence, I became so overwhelmed by the beauty of it all that I nearly fainted.

And then there was Pompeii. I spent a day visiting the ruins of Pompeii and it was an amazing experience. The eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in 79 AD may have been horrific for the Romans but it’s also gave history nerds like me a chance to step right into the past. Beyond just the thrill of seeing how the world once was, I have two main memories of Pompeii:

First, there was the visit to Pompeii’s brothel. An Australian tourist lay down on one of the stone slabs so that his family could take pictures of him.

Secondly, there was the fact that I wore a really pretty red dress for my visit but I failed to take into account that 1) the area around Pompeii is very hilly and 2) it was a very windy day. So, I can say that I’ve not only visited but I’ve flashed Pompeii as well.

My love for Italy and my memories of Pompeii are the two main reasons why I watched the 1972’s Pink Floyd: Live at Pompeii. It certainly wasn’t due to any great love for Pink Floyd, a band for which I have mixed feelings. On the one hand, I can’t deny their talent and I do like quite a few of their songs, if they do all tend to be a bit on the portentous side. On the other hand …. Roger Waters! Bleh, Roger Waters. Waters was one of the founders of Pink Floyd and, for a while, the band’s de facto leader. He’s also a rabid anti-Semite and a defender of Vladimir Putin’s. That said, I’ve discovered that I can justify listening to Pink Floyd by remembering that the rest of the band hates Roger Waters as well and that Waters himself eventually left Pink Floyd. Waters’s bandmate, David Gilmour, has flat-out called Roger Waters an anti-Semite. Of course, as I watched Pink Floyd: Live at Pompeii, I realized that I wasn’t sure which one was Waters and which one was Gilmour.

I should note that there are multiple versions of this documentary. The version that I watched was the original, which has a 64-minute running time and features the band performing at the ancient Roman amphitheater in Pompeii. This version was released in 1972. In 1974, it was re-released with additional footage of the band working on Dark Side of the Moon. This version also featured interviews with the members of the band. Presumably, if I had watched the ’74 version, I would know who was Waters and who was Gilmour.

But I watched the 1972 version, where the emphasis is on the band performing their music while shots of Pompeii flash on the screen. Other than the film crew, there is no audience watching the band perform. (I guess that one could claim that this documentary was an early music video.) There’s no interviews with the band and the members are so focused on their music that none of them really get much chance to show off much personality. The 1972 version, without any interviews, is a “These guys sure can play!” documentary. For the most part, it’s an entertaining film to watch. Pink Floyd’s music, which can be both silly and thrilling at the same time, has just the right otherworldly feel for Pompeii. Though they were oddly anonymous in the way that many big bands from the 70s were, the members of the band were definitely talented and their music sounded like something one would hear minutes before getting swallowed up in a flood of molten lava.

In the end, the important thing is that Pink Floyd sounded good. And, as always, Pompeii was beautiful.