Jackson Browne Movies

Filmmaker Peter Bogdanovich turns to the documentary form for the first time with this lengthy profile of one of rock and roll's enduring talents. Tom Petty: Running Down A Dream presents an in-depth look at Petty's life and career and his work with his long-time band the Heartbreakers, ranging from Petty's earliest musical influences (which includes meeting Elvis Presley when the King came to Florida to shoot a movie when Petty was just eleven years old) to the critical and commercial success of his 2006 album Highway Companion. Along the way, the film offers glimpses of Petty's early bands (including the Sundowners and Mudcrutch), his battles with record companies over royalties, record prices and control of his music, his collaborations with other artists (among them George Harrison, Bob Dylan, Stevie Nicks and Roger McGuinn), his relationship with his fellow Heartbreakers, and of course his music, with plenty of footage of Petty and the Heartbreakers strutting their stuff on stage. Produced as a special event for The Sundance Channel, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers: Running Down A Dream enjoyed a brief theatrical release before its debut on cable television. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Combining intimate acoustic performances with personal banter and song history, VH1 Storytellers attempted to take the concept introduced with MTV Unplugged a step further. On this 2001 release, viewers are given the opportunity to sample highlights from some of the program's most popular performances. Featured performers include Ringo Starr, Pete Townshend, David Bowie, Rod Stewart, Steely Dan, Sheryl Crow, and Jackson Browne. ~ Matthew Tobey, All Movie Guide

In the United States, hemp has been given a bad name, but is that reputation merited? Is it indeed only an illegal drug to be abused, a destroyer of brain cells, (as Government agencies would have us believe) or does it have other more beneficial sides? According to this interesting documentary, the answer is yes. Hemp fibers are stronger than wood or cotton; the seeds are high in protein, it can be cheaply grown in bulk without depleting the soil and without pesticides, it quickly biodegrades, and the psychoactive chemicals found in hemp can be used to treat a variety of physical ailments including glaucoma, extreme nausea, and pain. The film has a definite pro-hemp stance and presents considerable evidence for the legalization of marijuana and for the resumption of the hemp industry that once thrived in this country. Mostly though it is a chronicle of the history of hemp, which has been used for thousands of years, especially in the U.S. The filmmakers support their thesis of the value of hemp with a variety of medical, economic and political studies and interviews. Medically, they show many studies claiming that marijuana is less dangerous to the body than the legalized substances caffeine, nicotine, and alcohol. They also make the fascinating suggestion that powerful political lobbying from the budding 1930s petrochemical industry was instrumental in implementing the sudden banning of hemp because the hemp industry presented stiff competition for the oil industry's synthetic products. Interestingly, the filmmakers then provide evidence that hemp can be engineered to grow without the THC that makes it a drug, so hemp needn't be a drug. They also show how the government's restrictions have created a huge, often violent black market for the drug and have nearly pulled the rug out from under foreign economies such as Lebanon and Nepal, which are heavily dependent upon hemp exports. The film also includes fascinating archival film clips representing both sides of the issue. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

This German documentary offers a tragic profile of the notorious "death angel," Nico. Long after her death in 1988, the German model and entertainer has remained a darkly mysterious cult figure. She was born Christa Paffgen in Cologne and took her professional name from photographer Nico Papatakis. She began modeling in the early '50s, and this led to a brief appearance in Fellini's classic La Dolce Vita. Though Nico was blessed with the rare combination of beauty and intelligence, she was depressive and utterly lacking in ambition; she spent much of her life simply drifting about through various film and commercial appearances until she met artist Andy Warhol. He introduced her to the band the Velvet Underground, which resulted in the tone-deaf beauty occasionally singing with them -- much to the discomfiture of the band members; she became addicted to heroin and eventually could no longer disguise its effects. Nico went on to become a solo act until her death as the result of a brain hemorrhage. Nico -- Icon includes film clips, commercial clips, archival photos, songs, and interviews with those who knew her, including members of the Velvet Underground, Paul Morrissey, ex-Factory members Viva and Billy Name, songwriter Jackson Browne, and avant-garde filmmaker Jonas Mekas. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Barbra Trent's Oscar-winning documentary takes a harsh look at a black period in 20th-century democracy, the late '80s and early '90s when during "Operation Just Cause," the U.S. invaded Panama, ostensibly to oust dictator and known arms and drug kingpin General Manuel Noriega, whom the U.S. aided for over a decade. Basing her information on eyewitness accounts, Trent alleges that U.S. troops killed up to 4,000 Panamanian men between the ages of 15 and 55, buried them secretly in mass graves, and then reported back home that only 250 civilians died. She also alleges that the troops destroyed untold amounts of buildings. Shocking photographs back up her stunning allegations. Trent spares neither the U.S. government nor the media -- that blindly accepted and reported anything released by the White House -- from blame in keeping the horror a secret. The film begins with a history of the U.S. relations with Panama, beginning with Panama's fight for independence from Colombia -- something the U.S. backed so it could build the Panama Canal -- to President Carter's 1977 treaty that would give control over the vital shipping lane back to Panama in the year 2000. One of the most shocking aspects of the story is that according to Trent, "Operation Justice" was really launched so that the U.S. could renege on the treaty and retain control. She also suggests the U.S. military used the invasion to test out sophisticated new weapons in preparation for the Gulf War. The photos and violence depicted are not for the squeamish. Elizabeth Montgomery narrated the events. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

One of the most distinctive vocalists in the history of rock and roll, Roy Orbison was in the midst of a well-deserved comeback in 1987 when he performed this special concert for television, beautifully filmed in black and white and featuring some famous friends helping him out. Orbison is joined onstage by Bruce Springsteen, Elvis Costello, Bonnie Raitt, k.d. lang, Jackson Browne, Tom Waits, and T.Bone Burnett as he sings "Oh, Pretty Woman," "Only the Lonely," "It's Over," "Blue Bayou," "Crying," "In Dreams," "Running Scared," and ten other classics. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Also known as The Muse Concert: No Nukes, this rock-concert film offers a good representative cross-section of old-line show business liberalism. Bruce Springsteen and Bonnie Raitt are the "newest" members of the aggregation by default. They're okay if not brilliant, which can also be said for their fellow troubadours Jackson Browne, Crosby, Stills, and Nash, James Taylor and the Doobie Brothers. The anti-nuke theme of the concert isn't as overbearing as it might have been under the circumstances (even "special guest" Jane Fonda is comparatively benign). The best sequences in the film are comprised of misleading government-propaganda clips from the old TV series "The Big Picture" (love those uniformed piglets!) The graininess of the film stock is the only real detriment of No Nukes. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

"All the animals come out at night" -- and one of them is a cabby about to snap. In Martin Scorsese's classic 1970s drama, insomniac ex-Marine Travis Bickle (Robert De Niro) works the nightshift, driving his cab throughout decaying mid-'70s New York City, wishing for a "real rain" to wash the "scum" off the neon-lit streets. Chronically alone, Travis cannot connect with anyone, not even with such other cabbies as blowhard Wizard (Peter Boyle). He becomes infatuated with vapid blonde presidential campaign worker Betsy (Cybill Shepherd), who agrees to a date and then spurns Travis when he cluelessly takes her to a porno movie. After an encounter with a malevolent fare (played by Scorsese), the increasingly paranoid Travis begins to condition (and arm) himself for his imagined destiny, a mission that mutates from assassinating Betsy's candidate, Charles Palatine (Leonard Harris), to violently "saving" teen hooker Iris (Jodie Foster) from her pimp, Sport (Harvey Keitel). Travis' bloodbath turns him into a media hero; but has it truly calmed his mind?

Written by Paul Schrader, Taxi Driver is an homage to and reworking of cinematic influences, a study of individual psychosis, and an acute diagnosis of the latently violent, media-fixated Vietnam era. Scorsese and Schrader structure Travis' mission to save Iris as a film noir version of John Ford's late Western The Searchers (1956), aligning Travis with a mythology of American heroism while exposing that myth's obsessively violent underpinnings. Yet Travis' military record and assassination attempt, as well as Palatine's political platitudes, also ground Taxi Driver in its historical moment of American in the 1970s. Employing such techniques as Godardian jump cuts and ellipses, expressive camera moves and angles, and garish colors, all punctuated by Bernard Herrmann's eerie final score (finished the day he died), Scorsese presents a Manhattan skewed through Travis' point-of-view, where De Niro's now-famous "You talkin' to me" improv becomes one more sign of Travis' madness. Shot during a New York summer heat wave and garbage strike, Taxi Driver got into trouble with the MPAA for its violence. Scorsese desaturated the color in the final shoot-out and got an R, and Taxi Driver surprised its unenthusiastic studio by becoming a box-office hit. Released in the Bicentennial year, after Vietnam, Watergate, and attention-getting attempts on President Ford's life, Taxi Driver's intense portrait of a man and a society unhinged spoke resonantly to the mid-'70s audience -- too resonantly in the case of attempted Reagan assassin and Foster fan John W. Hinckley. Taxi Driver went on to win the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival, but it lost the Best Picture Oscar to the more comforting Rocky. Anchored by De Niro's disturbing embodiment of "God's lonely man," Taxi Driver remains a striking milestone of both Scorsese's career and 1970s Hollywood. ~ Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide