Nick Gravenites Movies

Big Brother & the Holding Company was one of the first major bands to emerge from the nascent psychedelic music scene in San Francisco, CA, in the mid-'60s. Conjuring up a high-powered blend of blues and folk, the band had already begun to gain a significant local following when the group's manager, Chet Helms, introduced them to a young woman from Texas who was looking for a gig -- Janis Joplin. After Joplin joined the band, Big Brother & the Holding Company became major stars, and their album Cheap Thrills became one of the touchstones of the early San Francisco sound, but Joplin's presence proved to be both a blessing and a curse. Her powerful vocals on tunes like "Piece of My Heart" and "Ball and Chain" helped make the group a hit, but once the music press singled out Joplin as the star of the show, the bandmembers soon found themselves in the shadow of their singer, even after she left the band to go solo. Big Brother and the Holding Company With Janis Joplin: Nine Hundred Nights is a documentary which examines the group's rise and fall, featuring interviews with the surviving members of the band and rare footage of the group on-stage, including performances of "Piece of my Heart," "Combination of the Two," "Ball and Chain," "Down on Me," "Light Is Faster Than Sound," and more. Rip Torn narrates. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

In this counter-culture caper comedy, directed by Alan Myerson (whose work with The Committee and Second City gives the film a quirky sketch comedy freshness), Donald Sutherland plays Veldini, a sad-eyed demolition-derby driver, serving time for larceny. He also possesses a millennial desire to wreck every car manufactured in the United States from 1940 to 1960. After being released from jail, Veldini hatches a scheme to restore an old U.S. World War II amphibian plane to escape conventional society and fly off to a new nonconformist world. Searching for spare parts to complete the restoration, Veldini realizes that a particular electrical circuit is available only at the local Navy base, and he decides to rob the base to steal the circuit. Involved in the caper with him is Iris (Jane Fonda in a burlesque of her performance in Klute) as a 100-dollar-a-night call girl who is sick of being humiliated; Veldini's kid brother (John Savage); and Eagle (Peter Boyle), a schizophrenic out-of-work circus performer. Standing in the way of Veldini's scheme is Frank Veldini (Howard Hesseman), his older brother and a politically ambitious district attorney. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide