Lejink

I have to search hard to find this documentary on one of my favourite singers, the late great Donny Hathaway. Although not the prolific songwriter that say, Stevie Wonder was, he was a wonderful keyboardist, arranger and bandleader, possessed of one of the most beautiful voices any ears have ever heard. He came to prominence in the early 70's but never really established himself as a solo artist, increasingly relying on duets with his close friend Roberta Flack to get his name on the charts. Troubled all his adult life with paranoiac schizophrenia, he tragically took his own life, jumping from a New York hotel window, at the age of only 32.

This very stylised and I suspect very personally felt documentary treats his life in ways both conventional and unconventional. Yes, it takes us back to his roots in St. Louis, where we learn from his two surviving sisters and brother of his hand-to-mouth upbringing, then visiting his old neighbourhood haunts and speaking in addition to other people he knew back then. The story moves forward as his talent takes him to New York where he's signed to the prestigious Atlantic record label and works with the label's renowned soul music producer Arif Mardin. There are interviews with some of his musical associates, including musician and producer James Mtume and naturally the recently deceased Ms Flack, as well as with his widow, all of this painting a picture of a greatly talented but deeply troubled man.

All this is done with very little reference to his musical career, none of the albums he recorded during his lifetime are mentioned, there is virtually no time-signalling to assist the narrative and really only a handful of his songs are heard with even less video footage shown of any of his television or in-concert performances. Strangest of all is the depiction of presumably a male figure tramping around Donny's old haunts in his footsteps, representing presumably the "Voices Inside" which eventually drove him to self-destruction.

Maybe I've just watched too many conventional musical biographical documentaries but I didn't think that this particular production served the great man well. Listening at too much length to his surviving siblings talking at length about their own struggles in life as well as trying to prove that that too had great singing voices for me detracted from the central story. It was noticeable too that none of Donny's surviving children chose to appear.

Donny's story deserves to be told and perhaps this could be done with a suitably sympathetic musical biopic emphasising his difficulties in life, especially in these days of heightened awareness of mental illness, as well as his musical triumphs. Quite who would be suitable to meet the dimensions of a man who was so complex and charismatic, I don't know, but this feature, while it is to be complimented on trying to shine a light in a too dark corner, nevertheless came over as too low-budget and deliberately arty to do proper justice to this great talent.

R. I. P. Donny, long gone but not forgotten.

I've loved Steve Martin's early comedies since I first saw them some 40 years ago and this one has always been my favourite. Watching it today however, I can see its flaws not least its sexist attitude to women and one deplorable use of racial epithets for supposed comic effect. I still love the film and it still makes me laugh but it's definitely of its time and there are many things in it that Martin and his director Rob Reiner just wouldn't get away with now.

Putting its disagreeable aspects to one side, this spoof on 50's science-fiction movies otherwise achieves almost laugh-a-minute status with me, the absurdist humour cracking me up throughout the entire film.

My favourite bits are the little girl repeating Martin's very lengthy and very detailed requirements after a car accident, his drunk-driving tests at the hands of a pair of suspicious cops, the poetry recitals, the warning from beyond the grave from his first wife, and even the unpronounceable names of Martin and the brain on his brain.

Not every joke lands but for every miss there are several hits, even if some are telegraphed well in advance. Martin is just so naturally funny in this and gets a great foil in the hotter-than-July Kathleen Turner who royally vamps it up as his conniving new wife.

It may be more of a guilty pleasure than I remember it but I still think "The Man with Two Brains" is an absolute hoot for the most part.

Just disengage your brain and enjoy it for the gag-fest it undoubtedly is. On second thoughts...

I've listened to a number of Led Zeppelin albums without ever calling myself a fan but nevertheless was interested to watch this documentary on the formative years of the band.

Of course it is hindered by the absence of their drummer John Bonham who died way too young from alcohol abuse, aged only 32 Hunter's death precipitated Robert plant's decision to quit and so dissolve the band. They have regrouped on the odd occasion in the intervening years including once with Bonham's fellow-drummer son Jason and of course Page and Plant themselves collaborated for their "Walking into Clarksdale" album but I did enjoy watching the three remaining members reminisce so warmly on their shared past. Bonham is heard however with audio excerpts from a previously unreleased interview and it's quite touching to observe how just hearing his voice affects his former bandmates even some forty years on.

The story is told from each band member's beginnings before they coalesced in 1968 around Jimmy Page who definitely emerges as the leader and organiser of the group. Nevertheless like most of the best bands, this definitely seems to be an equal four-way partnership with each member contributing their own particular input to the group dynamic. Personally I would like to have seen one scene with the four of them gathered together in one place but understand that logistics may have got in the way.

Interspersed with lots of vintage vérité clips, the story is told from back to front by just the four band members which I think is a good approach as I'm about fed up with outsider talking-head interventions in practically every other rock-doc I've ever seen. I also appreciated the number of whole-song live performances shown rather than the snippets you usually get.

This two hour film, which felt like it might have at least two more sequels in it, took a while to get going, at times rather awkwardly and unnecessarily tried to shoehorn footage of contemporary events into the narrative and seemed somewhat sanitised given what we know about this band's excess-all-areas reputation on the road. Nevertheless, there was lots here for their legions of fans to enjoy and enough for me personally to go back to the first two albums featured here to which I've never before listened and maybe feel the buzz for myself.