Nothing Sacred
Amy Winehouse: Back to Black
Amy Winehouse had the hairdo of a circa 1963 pop girl down pat. On what became her final album, Back to Black (2006), she suffused her songs with the sound and attitude of the early ’60s. The documentary Back to Black goes deep, interviewing producers, musicians, friends and her manager and unearthing a wealth of making-of footage. For Back to Black’s account of a relationship gone wrong, Winehouse conjured the apocalyptic heartbreak of The Shangri-Las.
Nothing Sacred
Written by Ben Hecht (The Front Page), Nothing Sacred wraps an unsparing satire of sensationalistic journalism, small-town parochialism and big-city credulity with a light touch. Carole Lombard stars as a woman thrust into celebrity and Fredric March as a cynical reporter. The pace is a bit measured for the screwball comedy genre, however, the visual gags are wickedly subtle. Director William Wellman shot Nothing Sacred in the nascent medium of Technicolor and New York City shined.
“Mamie Van Doren Film Noir Collection”
Once described as a “poor man’s Marilyn Monroe,” Mamie Van Doren was featured in the trio of late 1950s B-crime pictures packaged here. The most interesting, The Girl in the Black Stockings (1957), is a serial psycho-killer mystery set at a Utah resort. The murderer is one of the guests or staff, and the laconic sheriff has plenty of suspects. Sexual tension rises. The acting is mixed but the cinematography and editing are well done.
“The Power of Myth: 30th Anniversary Edition”
When PBS’ Bill Moyers sat down with Joseph Campbell in 1988, the interviews occured at Skywalker Ranch. Why? Because without Campbell, George Lucas said, there would be no Star Wars. In “The Power of Myth,” Campbell explicates the archetypal story underlying most stories whether in religion, literature, film, comic books or video games. That archetype is the hero’s quest—that push over the horizon or into the labyrinth where we venture outside to find what’s within.
