Dying to Know: Ram Dass & Timothy Leary

First Hit:  A fantastic film about the friendship and paths of these two amazing spiritual adventurers.

I believe that being a baby boomer helped me to see this film with fascination, wonder, and joyous recognition.

I can imagine that being born in the 70s, 80s, or 90s, these men and their exploits might be new news. However, as a baby boomer who did/used acid (LSD), mescaline, and other psychedelics, I smirked with a knowing smile remembering the great trips and the ones that scared the holy Jesus out of me. Like these two, this experimentation with drugs, along with my burgeoning meditation practice starting in 1967, created a crack within my consciousness wide enough for me to consider the larger picture of the whole and consider living in the now.

Just as with Ram and Timothy, many of our generation's spiritual practice was enhanced by the fissures created in perception by using drugs. Here, Timothy is nearing death and the now’s are pointing straight into the arms of death or non-breathing. Ram is sitting with Timothy and they just have a conversation.

The thrust of the film is their conversation of life's recollections, where they are now, and  how they might address the door of death.The film traces their friendship, kinship and paths to find a way to live from what they learn and not by the rules set up by our structured society.

We learn from each of them, how much they meant to each other’s own growth and how they face or see death. Leary is near death during the film and we have glimpses of him in his last moments. We also have Ram Dass learning how to live after suffering a major stroke.

The documentarian was very skilled at giving light to each’s path along with their communal path, our common path.

Robert Redford's narration was perfectly paced and toned. David Leach wrote the script for narrator Robert Redford. Gay Dillingham pieced together an amazing, funny, and insightful story from current and archive film.

Overall:  I left the film inspired to continue to do more spiritual work.

Amy

First Hit:  Very well crafted, visually arresting, and a finely produced film of Amy Winehouse’s short lived music career.

Three or four times during the first half-hour of the film I thought to myself, I’m so glad they put the words to the songs Amy was singing on the screen.

There were also occasions when the director used captions when Amy or some others, like Blake, spoke. To me the director did this for two reasons: 1) To show the power of her lyrics without getting caught up in deciphering the words in her musical pacing and 2) Her heavy cockney accent was at times difficult to understand, especially with some of the home filmed segments.

The captions made this film and story more accessible. This film starts with a brief show of her powerful voice when she sings “Happy Birthday”, and ends with her death. In between these two points, we get a deep view and listening to her heavily jazz influenced music stylings.

The film does not hold back on pictures showing Amy as high as a kite, make-up skewed, and holding on to either her ego, self-obsessed father, Mitch, or the love of her life Blake Fielder-Civil. Despite their pronounced lover for Amy, these men appeared to only care about themselves and what they could or would get them (fame, money, drugs, and booze). The people who really cared and loved her by their actions were her childhood girlfriends, Yasin Bey (Mos Def) and a few others.

Tony Bennett’s admiration of her singing ability and support meant so much to Amy. In the end it is a story of someone who misplaced what would really make her happy with the influence and behaviors supported by her hanger’s on.

Asif Kapadia did an outstanding job of putting together, phone video, still photos, and studio level video to create an amazing journey through Amy’s adult life.

Overall:  Well done story.

The Wolfpack

First Hit:  Although not well structured, this film amazingly shows how one family, locked away from society, learned about the world through films.

This documentary highlights how the Angulo brothers; Bhagavan, Govinda, Jagadisa, Krsna, Mukunda, and Narayana journey from being home-schooled and raised almost entirely in a New York City Housing Authority apartment to where they go outside and begin interacting with the world.

There were years when they never left the apartment and at the most there were years where they went out as a group a half-dozen times. To while away their time, they created music and watched films. Then after watching the films, they would write down the dialogue and make reenactments in their apartment.

Their father locked them in the apartment and told them that he knew better than most people how they needed to stay away from society. He despises work. Their mother is loving, gets beat by their father, but perseveres through all the weirdness to give the kids a sense of strength.

The way the film is cut/edited together makes it more difficult to piece the whole story together. But I’m sure there wasn’t a lot of archive footage to use, but maybe some narration about how their story came together and where they are today would have helped.

Crystal Moselle (Director) did a good job of getting the boys to share, express and open up about how they were raised.

Overall:  It was, at times fascinating, and other times had me wanting more information.

Monkey Kingdom

First Hit:  A truly delightful amazing film.

Disney does and continues to produce the most amazing nature documentaries ever made. Here the Disney team moves the ball further down the field with “Monkey Kingdom”.

Just as in a novel, the Disney team takes their painstakingly shot footage and pieces together a story that is emotionally compelling, fun and interesting. The main character is Maya, a female that is at the bottom of this group’s hierarchical based society. When she gives birth to a young boy Kip, things change because of her perseverance and dedication to protecting and feeding her boy.

The scenes of Sri Lanka’s jungle were amazing as well.

Tina Fey narrated this film perfectly. Her inflections and curiosity were infectious. Mark Linfield and Alistair Fothergill did an amazing job of directing this effort.

Overall:  It may be a “G” rated film, and for me the “G” means great.

Lambert & Stamp

First Hit:  A wonderful film providing a thoughtful history of the people behind the rock band "The Who "and how they grew to be famous.

The film was focused on Kit Lambert and Christopher (Chris) Stamp a pair of two unlikely collaborators that decided to help make a rock band famous so that they could film them and become filmmakers. Kit grew up in a stately environment with his father being an orchestra conductor and Chris was strictly from working class beginnings.

They both had dreams of making films. Although Kit was a gay man in England where being gay was illegal, he found friends and solace with Chris and The Who. This is the band Kit and Chris identified as the band they wanted to work with. They liked the crazy approach "The High Numbers" (as they were originally called) used to create their music.

The stage antics helped as well which included destroying their equipment on stage. The film uses lots of footage they shot back then and because Kit died some years ago, he is only seen and heard through this footage.

Most of the film is narrated by Chris, his brother and actor Terrence, Roger Daltrey lead singer of The Who, Pete Townshend lead guitarist and songwriter for The Who, Heather Daltrey wife of Roger, and a number of other friends. Because Keith Moon (drummer) and John Entwistle (bass player) had already passed we only see them in film.

The story unfolds around The Who’s career, how they changed over time and how these six worked together, fought together, and, in the end, pulled together to become a well-known famous rock and roll band. The ups and downs between the members were discussed openly and honestly. In the end the audience is treated to a wonderful view of young vigor moving to older wisdom and peace.

James Cooper directed and cut the interviews and archival footage in an amazing way.

Overall: this was a heartfelt amazing film highlighting one of my favorite rock bands ever.