Amanda Temple Movies
- 2006
Filmmaker Julien Temple takes a look beyond the guise of the late, anti-establishment icon Joe Strummer to offer a warm portrait of the self-described "mouthy little git" who was born John Mellor and was destined to become the frontman for one of the most influential punk bands ever. A complex figure who would learn to use his gift for music as a means of decompressing his conscience, Strummer is revealed here through unearthed interviews and the illuminating recollections of his closest companions. At times idealistic to a fault, the flawed Clash singer/songwriter had a special gift for compelling listeners to think as they moved to the music. Vintage performance footage and excerpts from Strummer's popular BBC radio program offer the ideal musical backdrop for an affectionate tribute to a punk-rock legend. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Joe Strummer
Although their career lasted a bit less than two years, few rock bands have made a more dramatic impact than the Sex Pistols, who quickly rose to international infamy as the best-known British punk band, then fell apart shortly after their first American tour in a tempest of drugs, ego, and infighting. Manager Malcolm McLaren began making a film about the group while they were at the height of their fame, but by the time McLaren and director Julien Temple completed The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle, the group's best-known member, bassist Sid Vicious, was dead, and the remaining Pistols -- vocalist Johnny Rotten (aka John Lydon), guitarist Steve Jones, drummer Paul Cook, and original bassist Glen Matlock were in litigation against McLaren and refused to participate. In 1998, Temple began working with the group's surviving members (who reunited for a brief tour in 1996) for this definitive documentary of the Pistols' career, which combines new interviews with footage of legendary live performances (such as their infamous Jubilee Day show on a ship sailing past the Houses of Parliament), as well as newsreels of the chaos that followed in their wake, including the TV appearance that changed them overnight from a little-known cult band to national pariahs. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- 1999
French filmmaker Jean Vigo made only four films prior to his death in 1934 at the age of 29 (only one a full length feature), but all of them are today recognized as landmarks of the European cinema, and Zero For Conduct and L'Atalante are often cited among the greatest films of their time. Vigo: Passion For Life is a dramatic biography that explores his brief life and tumultuous career. Born the son of a famous figure in the French anarchist movement, Jean Vigo (played here by James Frain) suffered from poor health throughout his life; he contracted tuberculosis as a young man, and met his wife Lydu Lozinska (Romane Bohringer) when both were receiving treatment in a sanitarium. Vigo made A propos de Nice in 1929 as an attack on bourgeois French society; the premier led to a riot, the first of many controversies surrounding Vigo's work (Zero For Conduct was completed in 1932, but its anti-authoritarian stance caused it to be banned until 1945). Vigo's fragile health was already beginning to fail him while he was filming L'Atalante; a fall into an icy river while trying to retrieve a camera only added to his ills, and he edited most of the film at home, too sick to leave. However, he was passionate about his art to the end, constantly battling producers and authorities to make films as he chose to make them. He died in 1934, the same year L'Atalante was released. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Romane Bohringer, James Frain, (more)
- 1997
- R
Jesse Peretz made his directorial debut with this intimate romantic drama adapted from a short story by Ian McEwan, switching McEwan's setting from an industrial English seaside town to the Louisiana bayou. Joey (Giovanni Ribisi) and Sissel (Natasha Gregson Wagner) live in a drab house on stilts, along with Sissel's lonely younger brother Adrian (Eli Marienthal). After Sissel introduces Joey to her father, Vietnam-vet Henry (Robert John Burke), the two men form a business catching eels. However, mistrust, anxieties, and arguments threaten the love Joey and Sissel share, and they begin to drift apart. Shown at the 1997 Toronto Film Festival. ~ Bhob Stewart, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Natasha Gregson Wagner, Giovanni Ribisi, (more)
