Lou Reed Movies

For his sophomore feature film effort, visual artist Julian Schnabel chronicles the life of one of Cuba's most charismatic literary voices, the late Reinaldo Arenas. Working with Arenas' friends and family, Schnabel recounts the author's impoverished rural upbringing and the intense love and support he receives from his mother (played by the director's wife, Olatz Lopez Garmendia). As a young man, Arenas (Javier Bardem) is singled out by his teachers and encouraged to further his skills as a writer -- no easy task, considering the Castro regime's censorship of any work considered to be subversive or anti-authoritarian. Still, the author manages to smuggle his work out of the country through friends, who arrange for one of his novels to be published in France. Not only persecuted for his creative beliefs, the openly gay Arenas is jailed on a bogus sex charge; he escapes internment only to be captured and persecuted later for his contraband dispatches. In 1980, Arenas is finally allowed to leave Cuba for the United States, where he achieves freedom of expression but not prosperity. Schnabel's first film was another portrait of an artist, 1996's Basquiat; Bardem made his name in several of director Pedro Almodovar's Spanish-language productions. Before Night Falls premiered at the 2000 Venice Film Festival, where it received the Best Actor and Grand Special Jury prizes, and made its North American premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival. Bardem would go on to receive a host of accolades, including an eventual Best Actor nomination at the 2001 Academy Awards. ~ Michael Hastings, All Movie Guide

In the United States, government funding for the arts has never been popular among the more conservative members of Congress, and to populists it has an unappealing odor of elitism. Nonetheless, at one time the arts were held in sufficiently high esteem that the National Endowment for the Arts was created and funded. In the late '80s and early '90s, the efforts of avant-garde members of the art community to shock the sensibilities of the American mainstream succeeded beyond their wildest expectations. The resulting furor elicited frenzied and at times foolish-looking denunciations from the religious and social right, and vapid self-righteous posturings from the art community, who were unable to admit the possibility that the (publicly funded) excesses of artists like Andres Serrano and Robert Mapplethorpe, whatever their purely artistic merits, were damaging the cause of public funding for the arts, which relies on popular support or at the very least popular acceptance. This documentary gives the very conservative Rev. Donald Wildmon a chance to speak freely, along with responses from the pro-arts funding community by Christie Hefner (Hugh's daughter) and others. Other notable figures involved in the controversy whose views are aired include Senator Alfonse D'Amato and Jesse Helms. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

Wim Wenders revisits his masterpiece Der Himmel Uber Berlin in this film which picks up several years after the original left off. Cassiel (Otto Sander) is an angel who watches over the lives of the people of recently reunified Berlin with Raphaella (Nastassja Kinski). Damiel (Bruno Ganz), Cassiel's former partner who opted to return to the land of the living in the first film, now lives happily as a pizza chef with the woman he loved and married, circus performer Marion (Solveig Dommartin). While angels are forbidden to directly intervene in the lives of humans, Cassiel impulsively breaks this rule when a little girl falls from the balcony of an apartment block, and he swoops down to catch her. Suddenly made flesh and blood, Cassiel has earned the enmity of Emit Flesti (Willem Dafoe), a sort of overseer of the angels on the physical plane. Emit makes it his business to make things difficult for Cassiel now that he's living among the humans, and after a period of alcoholism and imprisonment, Cassiel finds himself working for gangster Tony Baker (Horst Buchholz), who distributes weapons and pornography on the black market. However, Cassiel has a change of heart and decides to destroy Tony's stockpile in a bid to make the world a better place. Peter Falk, who played himself in Der Himmel Uber Berlin, makes a return appearance when a gallery shows the sketches that he was making in the first film; rock singer Lou Reed and former Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev also appear as themselves. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Director Allan Arkush knew whereof he spoke in Get Crazy. A longtime employee of Fillmore East, a popular rock-concert locale of the 1960s and 1970s, Arkush brought a great deal of insider's savvy to this comedy about the concert circuit and its denizens. Malcolm McDowell stars as a Mick Jagger-type rocker who is one of several acts lined up for a big New Years' Eve show. If villains Ed Begley Jr., Bobby Sherman and Fabian have their way, however, the show will never get off the ground. The supporting cast is dotted with such cult-flick icons as Dick Miller, Jackie Joseph and Mary Woronov. The musical portion of the program is handled by the likes of Malcolm McDowell, Lou Reed (as a Bob Dylan type) and Bill Henderson (as a Muddy Waters takeoff). In case it hasn't been made clear already, the main "joke" of Get Crazy is the presence in the cast of actors as musicians and musicians as actors; it is to the film's credit that this one joke never wears out its welcome. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Few figures from Andy Warhol's retinue of 1960s "superstars" burned a more indelible image than Joe Dallesandro. After years of being shuttled in and out of foster homes and juvenile detention facilities, Dallesandro was 15 when he began working as a nude model for the Athletic Model Guild, a photo agency who supplied material to a number of gay-oriented magazines, and at 17 he happened to meet Andy Warhol, who had become a highly visible in the underground film movement. Dallesandro became part of Warhol's stock company, and the camera clearly loved his emotionally blank tough-guy image and muscular body; when Warhol turned producer and Paul Morrissey became director of the Factory's cinematic output, Dallesandro was promoted to leading man and starred in Heat, Trash, Flesh for Frankenstein and Blood for Dracula. In time, Dallesandro moved on from the Warhol films, starring in a string of successful genre pictures in Europe, working with such filmmakers as Francis Ford Coppola Steven Soderbergh and John Waters, and guest starring on a number of top-rated television shows, including Miami Vice, Wiseguy and Matlock. Joe Dallesandro tells his own story of his life and career in the documentary Little Joe, which was co-produced by Dallesandro and directed by his daughter, Nicole Haeusser. Little Joe was an official selection at the 2009 Berlin International Film Festival, where Dallesandro received a special Teddy Award for his work and its impact on underground filmmaking and gay cinema. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Thirty-three years after his ambitious concept album Berlin was pronounced dead on arrival, Lou Reed reteams with producers Bob Ezrin and Hal Willner to stage live performances of the now-classic release at concert venues all across the globe. The album, which was savaged by critics upon release, was scored with orchestral arrangements and follows several characters as they experience jealousy, rage, and loss. While many turned their backs on the release back in 1973, the tide eventually turned and Berlin was even named by Rolling Stone as one of the top 500 albums ever released. Filmed during a five-night stint at St. Ann's Warehouse in Brooklyn, N.Y., this belated, live rendition of Berlin features an impressionistic backdrop filmed by director Julian Schnabel's daughter Lola and haunting backup vocals courtesy of the Brooklyn Youth Chorus. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

The concert film Lou Reed: Spanish Fly -- Live in Spain captures an August 7, 2004 show by the legendary former frontman of The Velvet Underground. The 11 song setlist touches upon almost every phase of his lengthy career and includes such favorites as "Walk on the Wild Side," "The Blue Mask," "Venus in Furs," "Satellite of Love," "Romeo Had Juliette," and "Sweet Jane." ~ Perry Seibert, All Movie Guide

Filmmaker Bill Guttentag takes a closer look at the atrocities committed by the Japanese after Nanking fell to the Imperial Japanese Army in 1937 with this documentary that was inspired by Iris Chang's novel The Rape of Nanking. Compiled from over 700 hours of footage including news-reel footage, interviews with survivors and soldiers, and staged readings, Nanking was financed in large by millionaire Ted Leonsis, who had read Chang's obituary and subsequently been prompted to read the author's best-selling account of the massacre. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

The struggle of a has-been singer to work his way back up the charts is the focus of this drama by Robert M. Young with screenplay and music by Paul Simon. Simon plays Jonah, a once-popular singer who now opens for punk rock bands. In the ten years since he had a hit song, Jonah's wife has divorced him, but he still sees his young son as often as he can. With his record company on his back to come up with something that sells, Jonah begins to compromise his own talent when he listens to the advice of a trendy producer. Whether or not he can straighten out his personal life and steer his own ship may depend on his ability to trust his own judgment and adjust to the changing times. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide