Moontime Daydream (15, 135 min.)
Conclusion: A starman and an oddity
Valuation: 
Hallelujah: Leonard Cohen, A Journey, A Song (12A, 118 min.)
Conclusion: full of treasures
Valuation:
David Bowie was a rock star like no other, and Moonage Daydream is a suitably unique documentary that purports to chronicle his remarkable life but is actually more of a journey through his relentlessly erratic mind, lasting well over two hours.
The last film I saw about Bowie was the hopelessly misconceived 2020 biopic Stardust, with a disastrous miscast of Johnny Flynn as Mann himself, an exercise riddled by the Bowie estate’s refusal to use his to allow music, was doubly paralyzed.
In striking contrast, Moonage Daydream presents writer-director Brett Morgen with the opposite problem.
David Bowie was a rock star like no other, and Moonage Daydream is a suitably unique documentary that purports to chronicle his remarkable life but is actually more of a journey through his relentlessly erratic mind, lasting well over two hours
The notoriously protective custodians of Bowie’s legacy have given him access to every nook and cranny, including all concert footage and the entire archive of interviews, so his headache should almost certainly be left out.
It also means that Bowie is effectively narrating the film himself. He was a willing conversationalist, cheerfully introverted and needing little nudge to philosophize about music, art, religion, pretty much anything. He has nothing to say about rugby league but it could be.
In truth, not everything he says on “Moonage Daydream” (in reference to the title of his 1971 song) is immune from accusations of hubris. But there are many valuable insights.
Classic film on TV
Paddington (2014)
Eight years isn’t very long to secure a classic statue, but Paul King’s film is such a joy – and the brave Peruvian bear stole our hearts once more with his antics alongside our late, beloved Queen earlier this year.
Saturday, BBC1, 7pm
I particularly liked his definition of what every day should accomplish for a human being…that in the end we should be content that we “have taken from him and given back as much as we can”. He fulfilled that equation more than most of us in his 69 years.
The film focuses primarily on the 1970s and early 1980s, from Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust years to his 1983 worldwide Serious Moonlight tour.
There are a few glaring omissions; We hear him gush about his 1992 marriage to Somali supermodel Iman, but his first marriage to Angie Barnett and his experience as a father are overlooked.
Nor did Morgen wisely and with amazing foresight choose this memorable clip of Bowie explaining to a skeptical Jeremy Paxman at the dawn of the internet age how the World Wide Web would transform the way we live. It pops up often on social media, to the point, and is always a treat.
Perhaps the director (whose credits include documentaries on the Rolling Stones, Kurt Cobain and, somewhat incongruously, primatologist Jane Goodall) felt it was too familiar. Finally, one of the greatest joys of the archival footage in this film is how little we’ve seen before.
Another joy for anyone who enjoys studying the art of the interviewer is watching Russell Harty, Michael Parkinson, Dick Cavett, Valerie Singleton and Mavis Nicholson struggle – and in some cases fail – , this unique, androgynous, driven, tremendously gifted being.
Harty went in at ground level. “Are those men’s shoes or women’s shoes or bisexual shoes?” he asks a little desperately. “Those are shoe shoes, fool,” replies Bowie.
The last film I saw about Bowie was the hopelessly misconceived 2020 biopic Stardust, with a disastrous miscast of Johnny Flynn as Mann himself, an exercise riddled by the Bowie estate’s refusal to use his to allow music, was doubly paralyzed
Mind you, this implies a down-to-earthness that the film hardly reflects. Morgen has filled it with hundreds of wildly different images, from crazy swirling psychedelics to Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers stoking a storm, from surreal animated sequences to the streets of Cold War Berlin. At first it seems unnecessarily distracting and odd, but gradually you realize it’s a pretty brilliant illustration of what made Bowie tick.
The life story of another creative genius is chronicled through his most famous composition in Hallelujah: Leonard Cohen, A Journey, A Song. Cohen died, coincidentally with Bowie, in 2016. And indeed there are other parallels; both men wrote at least as well as they sang, and both had incredibly fertile, restless minds. This excellent film from Daniel Geller and Dayna Goldfine is a lot more conventional than Moonage Daydream, but for Cohen fans it’s similarly full of treasure.
I enjoyed analyzing Hallelujah’s lyrics as, “Part biblical, part the woman he slept with last night.”
The life story of another creative genius is chronicled through his most famous composition in Hallelujah: Leonard Cohen, A Journey, A Song
The film deftly sheds light on Cohen’s complex personality, tracing the song’s path from his outright rejection by Columbia Records’ dour head Walter Yetnikoff (“Leonard, we know you’re great, we just don’t know , if you’re good,” he said), to its use in the 2001 film Shrek and its extraordinary triumph in the UK charts in December 2008. Alexandra Burke’s version reached No. 1, Jeff Buckley’s version No. 2, and Cohen’s 1984 original at #36.
It has since become a standard at weddings and funerals, and rang out poignantly at a memorial service in Washington DC for more than 400,000 American victims of the pandemic last year. So much for Yetnikoff’s verdict.
But that’s showbiz.
Danger! Jackie Brown is back in town…
Jackie Brown (15, 154 minutes)
Valuation:
In from the side (15, 134 min.)
Valuation: 
Quentin Tarantino fans will be delighted to know that there is a 25th anniversary re-release of his 1997 crime thriller, opening in more than 200 theaters nationwide today.
And if you’re really keen on your Tarantino detail, you might also have noticed the coincidence that Jean-Luc Godard died this week. The great French director was a major influence on Tarantino, who named his production company A Band Apart after Godard’s 1964 classic Bande à Part.
As far as I know, what Godard thought of Jackie Brown is not documented. However, it is entirely to Tarantino’s credit as the only one of his films that was not created in his own head; It is based on the novel Rum Punch by Elmore Leonard. Designed as an homage to the so-called “blaxploitation” movies of the 1970s, Pam Grier, a veteran of those movies, plays the title role (pictured).
She plays an air hostess who works for Los Angeles gun smuggler Ordell Robbie (Samuel L. Jackson), who uses her job to smuggle large sums of money for him, but ends up cheating on him.
It pays homage to the so-called “blaxploitation” movies of the 1970s and stars Pam Grier, a veteran of those movies, in the title role (pictured).
The last time I saw Jackie Brown on TV, I had to admit that I needed subtitles. Jackson’s dialogue in particular is delivered so quickly that it’s not always easy for a British audience to follow.
The service won’t be available in theaters, but I’m looking forward to it anyway. It’s a long, occasionally ponderous, but convincingly stylish and funny film with a wonderful soundtrack and an excellent supporting cast, directed by Robert De Niro and starring Michael Keaton, Bridget Fonda, Robert Forster and, in a jiffy, and you’ll-miss-it Cameo, Danny DeVito.
Another release this week, In From The Side, couldn’t be more different. A low-budget debut for writer-director Matt Carter, it follows a love affair between two players at a gay London rugby club, both of whom are in committed relationships with other men.
It’s an intriguing backdrop for a story about infidelity, but would be better suited to a four-part TV show. The film lasts well over two hours and needs a much earlier final whistle.