Day 8: Creation Stories
Creation Stories is about Glaswegian record mogul, Alan McGee, loosely based on his autobiography, Creation Stories describing his life of being inspired by music, making great records and partying. I didn't know anything about McGee when I chose the movie, but I did know a lot of the bands he produced (Jesus and Marychain, My Bloody Valentine, Teenage Fanclub, Primal Scream, Oasis) and was curious to see what kind of screenplay Irvine Welsh would write. The film is a well-paced rock and roll experience that takes considerable liberties with the source material. I liked it a lot, despite the absence of closed-captions on the Tribeca app, which left me and my husband to make our best guesses at some of the dialog. There were a lot of wonderful scenes in this movie. We see McGee lose his teenaged mind over the Sex Pistols' first TV appearance, the night of his near death from a cocaine overdose (which actually happened during an Oasis tour, and not as depicted in the movie), a more pleasant experience taking ecstasy at his first night of acid house that migrates to a small breakfast joint. This clip from when the bailiffs come to the studio to collect the rent captures the energy of the film. I hope this one comes out in theaters - all that sound and color is worth a big screen.
Day 9: Primera and God's Waiting Room
The "Primera" in the title of Vee Bravo's documentary about the 2019-2020 Chilean protest movement refers to the "Primera Linea" the front line of militant protestors who march in front to defend the larger mass demonstrations from the aggressive police. This documentary is a great exploration of movement strategy and police repression, as it follows the lives of a handful of members of the Primera Linea who explain how they first got involved in the movement and how it affected their lives afterward. It contextualizes and shows the evolution of a movement from an initial protest against a metro fare-hike to a broad movement to re-write the Chilean constitution. The film may be a bit too long; it has some slow sections, but it is very informative, showing many different types of protest within the larger movement, including a memorable feminist demo when women chant (in Spanish, but according to subtitles) "Bitch! Whore! But I'll Never Be a Cop!" I'd recommend it to activist groups and for classrooms and university screenings. It reminds me a bit of the Oscar-nominated short documentary, Do Not Split in its structure, but it is longer, creating space for more detailed representation of individual people's daily lives, aside from their participation in street demonstrations. The film includes one character who lost his eye during the protests, and through him we learn about this police tactic in Chile - a tactic that became common in Hong Kong in 2019 and in the United States during the summer 2020 uprising.
For whatever reason, I departed from my plan and decided to watch the movie God's Waiting Room which did achieve the director's goal of showing both the beauty and "grime" of Florida; I felt sweaty just watching. The film features strong performances from Nisalda Gonzalez, well-chosen for the role of Rosie, the young singer-songwriter, since she is a singer-songwriter herself, and from the winner of Tribeca's best-actor award, Matthew Leone, who plays the charming drug-dealer, Jules. (Romeo and Juliet, anyone?) I agree with other reviewers who thought that the movie could have worked well if it had stuck to the story of the couple, Rosie's two girlfriends, and her father, rather than adding the element of the recently paroled murderer. Instead, the writer/director literally inserts himself into his own composition like a wrecking ball, playing the parolee and taking the expression "Kill your darlings" far too literally. Until the ending, this was a nice, hazy story of adolescent boredom, burgeoning sexuality and confusion, and I wish Riggs had figured out a different way to provide closure that would have done justice to the characters.
The film was pleasantly and effortlessly bilingual and multicultural, as in almost every scene, we see white working class, African American and Caribbean, and Latinx characters from a variety of backgrounds living, partying and working together, flowing from English to Spanish and back. There were many narrative threads left hanging that he could have picked up and taken to a more meaningful conclusion driven by the conflicts among the central characters, even if it wound up just as (SPOILER ALERT!) tragic for the star-crossed lovers. What happens after you find out that one of your best friends is sleeping with the guy you're dating after she tells you he is a "gross little pizza rat from New York" that you should avoid? What if the attractive bad boy could learn something from Rosie's tough, but caring father? What about the random dude that Rosie wakes up next to after a party? What about Jules' relationship with his mother, who we see in one scene, working in a bar and getting hassled? Beyond just showing a mix of people of different ethnicities, the movie could have said something deeper about the tensions that might be part of that cultural mix. We learn that Jules is Puerto Rican and Italian-American, I would guess that Rosie is meant to be Cuban or Mexican, though that wasn't made explicit. Her friends are white and African-American or Afro-Caribbean (not specified). Jules's friends are also white and Black. The girls party with some white skateboarders. There was more than enough drama with the existing mix of characters and events to take this movie somewhere more interesting. Instead, as Andrew Bundy puts in his review at the Playlist,the ending was unbelievably unsatisfying.
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