This Is Gary McFarland
This locally made profile of a forgotten '60s jazz cat would've done better to locate a more compelling musical figure. McFarland (1933–1971) gained fame as a composer, arranger, and bandleader during the brief apex of what might be called the Hugh Hefner era of jazz—after be-bop and before the Beatles made his smoothly orchestrated sound the historical footnote it deserves to be. (Harvey Pekar is quoted in a rightfully disparaging assessment of McFarland's vocalese.) Tributes from friends and family are predictably fawning. McFarland worked with Gerry Mulligan, Stan Getz, Bill Evans, and Antonio Carlos Jobim. Certainly, he helped to popularize Latin-inflected jazz, but Jobim would've managed that on his own. Some cute computer-aided animation helps enliven the stills and few extant film clips of the man, but what's missing is any contemporary critical assessment of this proto-lounge-jazz figure's legacy. Is he back? Is he hip? Is a curio album like Soft Samba kitsch, make-out music for a bearskin rug, or what? (NR) BRIAN MILLER Egyptian: 7 p.m. Wed., June 14.
Deep Ellum Pictures
Kirkham on Inside Edition.
Details
TV Junkie Broadway Performance Hall, 1625 Broadway, 206-324-9996, www.seattlefilm.com. $5–$10. 9:30 p.m. Sat., June 17; 1:15 p.m. Sun., June 18. Not rated. 98 minutes.
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Time to Leave
A man finding out he has cancer and spending his precious remaining time resolving the conflicts and desires of his life has been done a million times. Why normally quirky French filmmaker François Ozon would take such a routine premise is beyond me, but he pulls it off with an extraordinary level of grace. Unlike Ozon's last attempt at sincerity (2004's 5x2), you'll care about his new set of characters, led by dying Romain (Melvil Poupaud), a gay fashion photographer who makes a controversial medical decision regarding his future. Poupaud's performance is deceptively simple: At first he lets Romain's many conflicting personality traits confound us, until their unifying cause sneaks up on us with powerful effect. The film extends Ozon's fascination with the beach, a boundary zone familiar from Under the Sand and See the Sea. Worth the price of admission alone is Jeanne Moreau in a marvelous one-scene performance as Romain's grandmother. (NR) FRANK PAIVA Neptune: 7 p.m. Fri., June 16; 1:30 p.m. Sat., June 17.
To Tulsa and Back: On Tour With J.J. Cale
Dead rock stars make for better movies. They can't defend themselves against insinuations of drug abuse, infidelity, and trashing hotel rooms the way living artists can. At 65, J.J. Cale seems to have put his hard-living younger "Cocaine" years behind him, even if those would make for a much more entertaining doc. He's pretty much mum on the subject of his long absences from touring and recording, past wives, or the dolorous cynicism that seems to drive most of his songs. Fawning German director Jörg Bundschuh isn't one to press harder as Cale revisits his childhood Tulsa home or plays a series of gigs with a graying band grateful not to be put out to AARP pasture just yet. Though Cale claims he isn't so relaxed as his sound (he cites Billie Holiday and Mose Allison as influences), he's too cagey—or simply inarticulate—to speak candidly about old demons or disappointments. Filmed separately in a sit-down interview, Eric Clapton amiably gushes about the author of his signature hits: "461 Ocean Boulevard was my kind of homage to J.J." So is this movie, only not in a good way. (NR) BRIAN MILLER Egyptian: 9:30 p.m. Wed., June 14. Broadway Performance Hall: 11 a.m. Sun., June 18.
Who Is Harry Nilsson (And Why Is Everybody Talking About Him?)
I predict a minor Amazon spike in music sales after more people see this effective Behind the Music–style documentary. It breaks no new ground but reacquaints a new generation with the late singer-songwriter (1941–1994), whose fruitful years precisely spanned the transition from '60s American folk to Beatles pop to '70s album-rock decadence. The great musical clips are many ("Without You," "Everybody's Talkin'," "Me and My Arrow," etc.), and the admiring testimonials of music greats are even more numerous (John Lennon, Ringo Starr, Brian Wilson, Jimmy Webb, Randy Newman, etc.). From Brooklyn poverty to Malibu mansion, Nilsson had an amazing life, but the trajectory and analysis here are familiar stuff. After the pinnacle of 1971's multi-Grammy-winning Nilsson Schmilsson album came the plunge into alcoholism and drugs. He willfully destroyed his gorgeously expressive three-octave voice and career. Why? Abandoned by his father, Catholic guilt, low self-esteem—we get the usual speculation, none of it well-substantiated. From beyond the grave, his recorded voice, an alcoholic rasp, offers no clues as to what impelled the rise and fall of a man his friend Van Dyke Parks simply calls "the melodian." (NR) BRIAN MILLER Egyptian: 9:30 p.m. Thurs., June 15; 11 a.m. Sat., June 17.
You and Me
Lonely Ariane (Julie Depardieu) writes photo novellas about dramatic love affairs between similarly lonely women and rich, handsome men. Her sister (Marion Cotillard) is a cellist who expertly plays romantic classical music but lacks the passion to become a soloist. You and Me is a charming French ensemble film about real life creeping into art, and vice versa. Awash in a candy-colored glow, the movie splits its narrative in half. Part of the story unfolds in reality, while another part unfolds in single-panel frames with dialogue bubbles like a comic book. The conceit is quite ingenious, and very funny, but director Julie Lopes-Curval weighs it down by not keeping the real-time sequences as brisk as the imaginary ones. She also can't seem to decide whether her film is comedy or drama. Still, it's an involving and interesting diversion, the classiest kind of supermarket checkout material. (NR) FRANK PAIVA Pacific Place: 7 p.m. Thurs., June 15. Neptune: 1:15 p.m. Sun., June 18.
