There’s nothing better than a great documentary and “Queen of the Deuce” manages to be one of the best I’ve seen this year. Valerie Kontakos’ biography about NYC figure Chelly Wilson is one of the more excellent documentaries I’ve seen that covers an array of topics from family, LGBTQ politics, and the ever lasting effects of the holocaust. More so it’s a brilliant time capsule of the Deuce, 42nd Street in New York which, at one time, was considered a virtual breeding ground of violence, sex, drugs and all other kinds of depravity.
Tag Archives: Biography
Shari & Lamb Chop (2023) [Make Believe Film Festival 2024]
The biography of Shari Lewis is long overdue and a story worth telling. It’s a perfect film for people that grew up watching Shari Lewis and Lambchop during various points of her illustrious career. Whether you’re a boomer, Gen X, or Millennial, the odds are you have seen Lambchop at one point in your life. For me, I used to watch her revival show on PBS in the 1990’s and tuned in regularly. I loved Lambchop despite being a tad too old for the intended target audience, but I didn’t care. The story of Shari Lewis is one filled with a lot of happiness, a lot of promise and of course some terrible sadness that befell her later in her life.
Deep Inside Annie Sprinkle (1981)
I was first introduced to Annie Sprinkle during the heyday of HBO when she appeared on the documentary series “Real Sex.” She was promoting one of her sex positive film festivals, as well as taking photos with willing fans donning a bare chest and angel wings. Some how that image never left my brain over twenty years later, and that’s simply Annie’s style. Annie is a self-aware and slickly tongue in cheek porn icon who spent much of the seventies starring in a ton of porn films and never had a limit to what she was into.
The Greatest Night In Pop (2024)
Now Streaming Exclusively on Netflix.
In 1985, Quincy Jones teamed up with Michael Jackson and Lionel Ritchie to create one of the biggest music hits of the 1980’s. It also happened to be one of the biggest bits of performative activism ever staged for a worldwide audience. While America was in the throes of the Regan era, more and more celebrities stepped up not only to act as idols but as activists striving for some kind of change. With “The Greatest Night in Pop,” Bao Nguyen chronicles the making of “We Are The World.” The surefire hit and Grammy Winner became a legendary anthem for activism teaming up some of the all time greatest singers of the 1980’s who stepped on to sing.
The Death Tour (2024) [Slamdance 2024]
The Slamdance Film Festival runs Digitally and In-Person from January 19th to January 28th.
Directors Stephan Peterson and Sonya Ballantyne’s documentary is probably one of the most important and meaningful documentaries about the art of pro wrestling ever released. It’s a movie just not about the love and sacrifice for the art form, but also a documentary about the marginalized and how more and more the indigenous community is quietly being pushed out off the edges of Canada and being transformed in to a sea of blank and forgotten people. Stephan Peterson and Sonya Ballantyne chronicle the weeks long tour across Manitoba known as “The Death Tour” where a group of pro wrestlers visit various indigenous and small communities in the dead of winter to perform for children and families.
Invaluable: The True Story of an Epic Artist (2014) [Blu-Ray]
Now Available from Synapse Films.
Behind every good movie series there are the fans that help fuel it and Tom Sullivan is probably one of the biggest and best of them all. One of the biggest indie horror success stories is Sam Raimi’s “Evil Dead” and how it rose from low budget feature to horror masterpiece. It wasn’t an overnight success but one that was helped by the fervent love and passion by its creators Sam Raimi, Bruce Campbell and Tom Sullivan. Sullivan was one of the FX artists that helped Sam Raimi engineer “Within the Woods” in to “The Evil Dead” and worked very hard on “The Evil Dead.”
The War on Disco (2023)
Lisa Quijano Wolfinger’s “The War on Disco” is a great documentary—if you have minimal to zero knowledge about disco music. For an hour long documentary it does very little to take advantage and explore the lesser known corners of the Disco boom of the 1970’s. It’s all pretty much a superficial and speedily paced buffer about the entire craze called Disco Music. Known for a long time as an enemy to rock music, Disco was a sub-genre of dance music that allowed for a lot more diversity, which prompted a lot more people to hate it.