Music legends, Frida Kahlo and a thought-provoking documentary top the slate this week.
With its puerile humor and insistence on stupidity, “Ebony and Ivory,” from indie filmmaker Jim Hosking (“The Greasy Strangler”), isn’t for everyone.
But there’s brilliance as well as brazenness in this outrageously fabricated account of the early-1980s artistic partnership that gave rise to Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder’s smash-hit title song. Hosking’s two-hander brings an unnamed McCartney and Wonder — we’ll call them Paul (Sky Elobar) and Stevie (Gil Gex) — together in a cottage on the Scottish coast, to collaborate as fellow “music legends.”
Initially these temperamental opposites — Paul is folksy; Stevie’s surly — don’t get along. But after they smoke some of Paul’s “doobie woobie” — Hosking and his actors have a penchant for silly rhymes and near misses (“Scottish cottage”), delivered with overly enunciated speech — bonding begins. Never mind that neither has anything of substance to say as they establish their “perfect harmony.”
Goofiness prevails as Paul serves up vegetarian ready meals (created by “the wife”), which he sometimes feeds to Stevie via a “nugget slide.”
The two clown around in kimonos. They cavort, naked, in the sea. They don sheep costumes — one black, one white — and “baa” at each other.
Elobar and Gex, both committed to their characters, keep the comedy grounded in a ludicrous reality that we can, somewhat surprisingly, buy into.
Opens Aug. 8 at the Alamo Drafthouse New Mission, San Francisco. A Q&A with actor Sky Elobar is Aug. 9; visit drafthouse.com.
Celebrity music docs may seem to be a dime a dozen these days, but the good ones, and Amy Berg’s “It’s Never Over, Jeff Buckley” qualifies as such, make for rewarding viewing.
Combining archival materials with recent interviews, Berg (“West of Memphis,” “Janis: Little Girl Blue”) chronicles the life and career of Jeff Buckley, the 1990s rock, jazz and blues star known for his stratospherically emotional vocals and his intimate rendition of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah.”
Buckley died at 30 from an accidental drowning, after releasing his only album, the acclaimed “Grace.” (David Bowie calls it the greatest album ever.)
While her cradle-to-grave format is conventional, Berg fills the spaces between the plot dots with insightful comments (interviewees include Buckley’s mother, Mary Guibert, and former partners Rebecca Moore and Joan Wasser) about factors that shaped Buckley’s art and path. These include Buckley’s struggle to separate himself from his talented but troubled father, the musician Tim Buckley, who was barely a presence in his life, and who also died young.
Most impressive is the footage of Jeff Buckley himself. A creative force with a four-octave range whose personal gods included Nina Simone, Edith Piaf and Led Zeppelin, he simply amazes.
Opens Aug. 8 at Bay Area theaters. A Q&A with Mary Guibert moderated by San Francisco’s Ben Fong-Torres is at San Francisco’s Roxie Theater after the 6 p.m. Aug. 8 screening. Ticket sales are currently at rush.
Frida Kahlo is back on the screen, this time in playfully animated form, in “Hola Frida,” a family-geared adventure that imagines the childhood of the iconic 20th-century Mexican artist and continued source of fascination.
Directed by Andre Kadi and Karine Vezina and inspired by the animated series and book “Frida, c’est moi,” this gently unfolding French production presents the young Kahlo as a spirited girl with big brown eyes, a unibrow, flowers in her hair, and ahead-of-her-time feminist ideals. She lives with her parents and sister Cristina in a small Mexican village.
A polio diagnosis forces Frida, who is bullied at school for her disability, to use art to create her own realities, which range from magical gardens to dark forces from an underworld.
Don’t expect exciting action sequences in which Frida, empowered princess style, saves the day. Frida’s universe is an ordinary place—marketplaces, playground antics, a canine companion….
Animation created to reflect the colorful, surreal and folkloric elements of Kahlo’s paintings brings this world vividly to life.
Opens Aug. 8 at the Maya Pittsburg Cinemas, Pittsburg.
Reid Davenport (“I Didn’t See You There”), who makes political films about disability, looks at disturbing aspects of assisted-dying laws in “Life After,” a thought-provoking advocacy documentary.
Centering on Davenport’s investigation into the fate of a California woman who, in 1983, made headlines when seeking the “right to die,” the film explores a range of ethical issues relating to Medical Aid in Dying policies. Davenport convincingly demonstrates that these laws, while generally reflecting humane intentions, are being employed in ways that, beneath their progressive surfaces, undervalue disabled lives.
“Life After” screens at 12:30 p.m. Aug. 10, at the Roxie Theater. A discussion with Davenport, moderated by Mother Jones reporter Julia Metraux, follows. Virtual screenings are set for 7 p.m. Aug. 12-13. Visit roxie.com.
Bay Area Film Mixer, a quarterly gathering designed to bring local filmmakers together to share work and build strength as a community, launches its Screening Series at the Roxie Theater at 6 p.m. Aug. 5. Short films made by local artists, plus trailers, make up the program, which has been curated to reflect the diversity, talent and creative DNA of the area’s arts community.
Networking, at Kiito’s Cocktail Lounge (200 Capp St., S.F.), plus a filmmaker Q&A, follows the screening. Bring your Roxie ticket stub for 15 percent off on your first drink and a free welcome shot.
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