Moko Jumbie
Moko Jumbie
Asha, a young British woman of Indian heritage, returns to her family home in Trinidad. There, she finds crime and racial tension between the island nation’s Indians and Africans but falls for the handsome black youth across the street. Her family has strange secrets, including her aunt’s guarded warnings about wandering far from the house. Asha also glimpses hoodoo spirits in the night. With Moko Jumbie, first-time director Vashti Anderson worked well within a minimal budget.
The Midnight Man
Burt Lancaster wasn’t old when he starred in The Midnight Man (1974) but he was seasoned, comfortable inside his skin—a professional among a stick figure supporting cast. Lancaster plays a college cop (redeeming his life after a felony conviction) suspicious that a campus murder investigation involves a frame-up and a cover-up. He’s entirely convincing as a “got to do it my way” guy in the midst of a story adrift in the era’s generation gap.
Band vs Brand
Artistic growth was once prized in rock music. However, most of the “artists” interviewed for the documentary Band vs Brand seem happy (or resigned) to fixed images and narrow definitions. Trademarked dinosaurs, stamped with logos, roam the concert circuit selling T-shirts, not albums, nostalgia, new music. A few worry that there should be “integrity” and avoid “selling out too much.” For some name “brands,” all original members are dead but someone still collects the proceeds.
Antonio Lopez 1970: Sex, Fashion & Disco
During the 1970s, New York’s Antonio Lopez infused the customarily straightforward craft of fashion illustration with the bright narratives of pop art. Lopez drew for Vogue and Elle and made himself essential in the glitzy disco-powered demimonde of high fashion. Filmmaker James Crump’s entertaining, revealing documentary showcases the exuberant pursuit of pleasure that drove an era. Archival footage is augmented by interviews with photographer Bill Cunningham and actress Jessica Lange. Lopez died from AIDS in 1982.
