Tag: theatre documentaries

film, not a book

Not a Book: Rocky Horror documentary

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Happy Sunday everyone, and I’ve got a new release film for you this week that I went to see yesterday and am posting about straight away beause screenings may be limited and (spoiler) I really liked it and want it to do well.

Strange Journey is a documentary telling the story of Rocky Horror documentary as it went from Upstairs at the Royal Court in London, to the Kings Road in Chelsea, to LA to the big screen and then its transformation into probably the ultimate cult movie. It’s directed by Linus O’Brien who is the son of Rocky creator and original Riff Raff Richard O’Brien and as well as being a history of Rocky, it’s also the story of Richard O’Brien’s own journey with his gender identity. It’s got all the talking heads you could want, as well as Richard O’Brien – singing some of the songs while playing them on guitar at 83! – it has Susan Sarandon, Barry Bostwick, Jim Sharman and most importantly Tim Curry. And there’s loads of behind the scenes footage too – it turns out someone had a cine camera behind the scenes of the Rocky movie shoot as well as at some of the early London theatre performances, so you get to see them all in their original incarnations as well as things like watching Curry performing Sweet Transvestite to the movie camera with all the trappings of the set. I’ve put the trailer in here because it gives you a good idea of what you’re in for:

It’s very much a history and appreciation – it’s got Trixie Mattel and Jack Black for talking heads as well as various film academics and shadow cast members talking about the historical significance of the film and the positive effect that it has had on their lives. I really enjoyed it – it brought a tear to my eye more than once and I once again remember that Tim Curry’s Frank N Furter is incredible.

I’m not sure how old I was when I first saw the movie, but I first went to the touring musical when I was in my final year at uni – and came straight out of the early evening show and bought a ticket to see the late show and watched it again from the front row, having spent more of my monthly budget than I intended and then went out to the stage door afterwards (not a very Verity thing to do) and got a picture with David Bedella (an even less Verity thing) which I still have, still think I look goofy in, but still sort of love all the same. So I think I’m the ideal audience member for this, and can’t really work out how it will land if you’re not a Rocky fan. But then it’s a cult of its own really, so hopefully some of the people who go to midnight screenings every week will turn out to see it.

Have a great Sunday everyone.

film, not a book, streaming

Not a Book – Liza: A Truly Terrific Absolutely True Story

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Another Sunday, another documentary from me. And it’s probably not unexpected that a musicals geek like me would watch a documentary about Liza Minelli, but I’m here to make a case forwhy you’d be interested in it even if you’re not a fan of musicals or divas.

This is a documentary about Liza Minelli, which focuses principally on Liza’s life after the death of her mother Judy Garland, and her work establishing herself as separate to her mother and building her own legacy and legend. As you can see from the trailer, Liza is in it (a lot) as are numerous of her friends – both famous and not.

Liza’s life is pretty incredible. She’s the daughter of one of Hollywood’s most beloved (but troubled) stars and a legendary director of musical films, She was in the public eye from the day that she was born, but she went on to be an iconic performer herself. She’s one of only six people to be a non-competitive EGOT – her Grammy is an honorary one, but she won her Oscar, Emmy and three Tonys in competition (and has a fourth honorary Tony too). And that career is covered extensively in this documentary.

But the reason that I think that this is of interest to people beyond the Liza fans, is because of that life time of fame. Liza has never really had a private life, and she’s had a public persona from the moment her parents first put her in front of a camera. in a way, she’s one of the last vestiges of the studio system: a child brought up in the business who watched how her mother was portrayed in the press and who has deliberately and constantly guarded what facets of herself she shows to her fans and her public when she’s not performing. So don’t go expecting any big revelations or confessions here – but that’s what I found so fascinating – what Minelli is like in normal life is essentially unknowable unless you’re in her inner circle. And you get glimpses of that from the friends and family – but just that, glimpses because her one overriding motivation in her public persona is to prove to everyone that she’s not Judy Garland and that she didn’t inherit all the problems that her mother had.

So it’s incredibly watchable, but there’s a lot of smoke and mirrors. There’s loads of great archive and lots of evidence that she’s a kind person but she’s not going to tell you how she feels, or what she really thinks. I know that Peter Allen was the husband that she liked the most – according to her friends but there’s nothing really good or bad from her about any of them, although various of her friends are not shy to tell you that they really didn’t like David Gest. She’s still sticking to it that she never really saw any drugs at Studio 54, despite all other evidence to the contrary. You come away feeling doused in showbiz pizzaz, and slowly realise that you’re none the wiser about the reality. Just fascinating.

This one is available on different streaming services depending on where you are – in the UK it’s on the iPlayer at the moment.

Have a good Sunday!

not a book, streaming

Not a Book: Swan Song

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It’s probably stating the obvious, but it’s a long way from the UK to Kuala Lumpur, so on the way there and back I had plenty of opportunity to sample the inflight entertainment and although I did take full advantage of the fact that they had a number of my old favourite movies that I used to lull me to sleep (namely Sean Connery James Bond movies but also my beloved Pillow Talk and The Philadelphia Story), I do still have a recommendation to give you today from my viewing.

Swan Song is a feature length documentary (although if you are in Canada there was an extended four part series version) about the National Ballet of Canada’s staging of a new production of Swan Lake, under the directorship of their outgoing artistic director, retired ballerina Karen Kain. Originally due to premiere in 2020, the production was delayed by Covid, so it also shows an artform trying to regroup after the lockdowns and closures that threatened the survival of so many arts organisations. As well as Karen Kain, the documentary follows the company’s principal ballerina Jurgita Dronina and several members of the corps de ballet.

A lot of the issues that commonly come up when you’re talking about ballet are in this too – including the reckoning with racism and the fact that all the ballet “ideals” are built around white dancers, and the ever present spectre of eating disorders and body image issues. But it’s also got lots of beautiful dancing as well as a close up view of the effort it takes to mount a production like this, as well as how hard it is to be a member of the corps – which is something that often gets overlooked.

Regular readers will know that although I’m about as graceful as, well, something very ungraceful* I absolutely adored ballet books when I was a child – and in fact have all the Sadlers Wells and Drina books on my shelves to this day** and I really like documentaries that take you behind the scenes of ballet. The BBC has had a couple of really good ones – including Men at the Barre (sadly currently unavailable to watch on iPlayer) where we discovered that Vadim Muntagirov is known as Vadream by the ballerinas because he’s such a dream to work with – and so this was total catnip for me.

Although I’ve seen Swan Lake a few times and watched a whole load of documentaries about it, I wasn’t massively familiar with the National Ballet of Canada, so there was lots of interesting new stuff for me here. I wouldn’t count myself as a massive ballet fan though – so I don’t know how this would land for someone who is, but I think it would be interesting to the casual theatre or dance fan too. Him Indoors is usually my gauge of things like this for the non-fan – and I think there’s some stuff that he would have been interested in, but most of the backstage-y stuff isn’t for him, so it’s probably one that I would put on when he was out of the room and see what happened when he came back in, rather than one that I would put on to watch with him!

If you’re not going on a plane in the near future and want to watch this, it’s available to purchase now on the various streaming platforms. And just before I go it would be remiss of me to have a post about ballet this weekend and not mention the sudden death of Michaela Mabinty DePrince at just 29. Her journey from war-torn Sierra Leone to the highest level of ballet was remarkable, and she was a dedicated humanitarian as well as a beautify dancer. I’m still in a bit of shock about it to be honest.

See you tomorrow.

*I suggested Peter Crouch, but Him Indoors insists that Crouch is infact graceful. I was aiming for something that has too many legs and flails a lot. Answers on a postcard/in the comments

**in some cases more than once. Ooopsies