Paul Williams cut an odd figure way back in the mid 70s – all poppin’ collars and cranberry suits, amber-vision glasses and gut-busting waistline. Williams was all of 5’2, with chubby cheeks and golden locks, kind of like what Edgar Winter would look like if a warehouse safe somehow landed on his head.

But that was then, and this is now.

Now, Paul Williams looks kind of like a wise and aging mogwai. And, what’s more, he’s 22 years sober. Both of these things help form the basis of Paul Williams: Still Alive – a charming documentary that follows Williams in real-time as he plays unremarkable gigs in Winnipeg, the Philippines, and the barren outskirts of Las Vegas.

The documentary paints a compelling portrait, to be sure. And it explains a great deal about why Williams seemed to have completely fallen off the map so many moons ago. But it falls short in the sense that it never really digs beneath the surface to dish the dirt on just how bad off Williams really was at one point, and how hard he had to fight and claw to will himself through recovery.

This is the meat and potatoes of how Paul Williams got to where he is today … a much healthier, less-recognizable shadow of his former self. And this is sadly missing from a documentary that seems much more preoccupied with unnecessary minutia, like Paul’s undying love of squid and the filmmaker’s ridiculous fear of traveling in the Philipines.

The problem here is (Director) Stephen Kessler’s fanboy allegiance to Williams, his acute fear of upsetting the man by attempting to ask anything the least bit daring, and his sheer unwillingness to risk their new-born friendship by challenging Williams to explain any of the broader issues that really matter most.

The whole thing comes full-circle in the end, and there are some really heart-felt moments during those closing minutes … moments during which Williams is forced to confront what a spiraling mess he was just before he hit rock bottom. But it’s far too late at that point. The film has already wasted a great deal of its time waxing eloquent about a fascinating icon from the 70s who somehow managed to fall so deep and hard down the rabbit hole, a great deal of us very naturally assumed he was dead.

(Paul Williams: Still Alive opens in limited release in major markets across the country this coming Friday.)

Here are 18 leaps of faith any viewer must make in order to enjoy Rob Reiner’s new film, The Magic of Belle Isle:

1. That the decision to name a movie about an attractive divorcee and a man who represents his own island The Magic of Belle Isle is not a very poor choice of metaphor.
2. That the appropriate reaction after an unruly drunk in a cowboy hat fires off two warning shots from a gold-plated pistol in the middle of your six-year old’s birthday party is to break into laughter and say, “Well, I guess it’s time for cake!”
3. That the idea of a drunk, aging writer who has lost the narrative thread is not one of the most played-out cliches in all of Hollywood.
4. That naming your daughter Willow Tree is not a silly, pretentious thing to do.
5. That doggy humor is not the screenwriter’s equivalent of mailing it in.
6. That full-grown men who are mentally handicapped hop around like bunny rabbits all day long.
7. That full-grown men who are mentally handicapped can be programmed to stop hopping around like bunny rabbits at the drop of a hat.
8. That it’s not the least bit odd that the full-grown man with a mental handicap in this film has the same first name as Rob Reiner’s father, Carl.
9. That a proud and brilliant black writer would choose to devote his life’s work to singing the praises of a wild west cowboy as the personification of wholesome American values.
10. That a proud and brilliant black man who writes about cowboys would just so happen to be named Monte Wildhorn.
11. That an entire town would collectively wrap its arms around a miserable old drunk who tells each of them to fuck off in no uncertain terms, because they’re all just such wonderfully, well-adjusted human beings.
12. That Fred Willard is not horribly miscast here.
13. That all birthday clowns are pissy, arrogant, grizzled assholes.
14. That mothers don’t get the least bit aggravated when their daughters go digging through their childhood diaries.
15. That completely irrational fairytale endings are always the best way to go.
16. That the song “Don’t Worry, Baby” belongs anywhere in this film.
17. That Rob Reiner was once the director of an Oscar-nominated film.
18. That this film would’ve been the least bit coherent had it not been for Morgan Freeman.

(The Magic of Belle Isle is now available on Video on Demand with a national theater release scheduled for July 6th.)

“The whole process allowed me to continue when life itself offered very little, when life itself was a horror show. There was always the typer to soothe me, to talk to me, to entertain me, to save my ass. Basically, that’s why I wrote: to save my ass, to save my ass from the madhouse, from the streets, from myself … I had the bottle and the typer. I liked a bird in each hand, to hell with the bush.”

(Good Pictures/Bad Camera is a regular feature on IFB.)

Here comes a scoutmaster, with no real ability to lead. There goes a cheating housewife, so distant that she communicates through a megaphone. Here comes her idle husband, so dizzy and blind he can’t see what’s right in front of him. Here comes Social Services, wearing the dazzling blue robes of a jailer. There goes an unwanted orphan, determined to blaze his own trail. Here comes his mistress, the raven, who’s nursing a broken wing.

Here they all are, set adrift on Misfit Island, running amuck amidst the same vile storm that’s been threatening for years.

It’s a unique angle, to be sure … albeit not on the cult-classic scale of previous Anderson outings like Rushmore and The Royal Tenenbaums. The pacing here is similar, and so is the dialogue. But Moonrise suffers from the obvious drawbacks that arise when casting knee-high leads. This is not to disparage any of the child actors in the film. It is only to acknowledge that they are child actors, after all, tackling some very adult themes.

Yet the beauty of the film is that Anderson manages to keep those themes light. He captures the essence and abandon of first kisses, first love, discovery and danger. And he does it in such a way that it all feels very child-like, without seeming the least bit child-ish.

In the end, Moonrise Kingdom serves as a charming reminder that we spend most of our formative years being told how to act more like adults, and most of our grown-up years trying to recapture that feeling of youth. No matter who you are, or where you’ve been, that cycle inevitably repeats itself, over and over and over again, till you’re lying on your death bed some day, trying to tell anyone who’ll listen, how altogether fleeting and wonderful the whole goddamned thing really was.

Wes Anderson, as usual, is way ahead of the curve on this one.

(Moonrise Kingdom opens in limited release in theaters across the country today.)

What follows is a comprehensive breakdown of alcohol-related expenses I incurred between the years of 1992-2012. Numbers were compiled using a combination of bank statements, credit card statements, check receipts, invoices, bar bills, municipal fines, court documents, legal receipts and cocktail napkins. Obviously, it’s next to impossible to hit a 20-year figure like this on the nose. But rest assured, no totals were included that could not be substantiated by some type of tangible proof. On the rare occasion close estimates did become necessary, the policy was to always err on the side of caution, thereby avoiding any irresponsible inflation. Accuracy was – and is – the constant goal.   Continue reading →

“Woody’s songs were having that big an effect on me, an influence on every move I made, what I ate and how I dressed, who I wanted to know, who I didn’t. In the late ’50s and early ’60s, teenage rebellion was beginning to make noise, but that scene hadn’t appealed to me, not in a wholehearted way. It had no organized shape. The rebel-without-a-cause thing wasn’t hands-on enough. Even a lost cause, I thought, would be better than no cause at all. To the Beats, the devil was bourgeois conventionality, social artificiality and the man in the gray flannel suit. Folk songs automatically went up against the grain of all these things, and Woody’s songs even went up against that.”

(Good Pictures/Bad Camera is a regular feature on IFB.)

Rufus Wainwright is one of those artists who cannot be fully appreciated on vinyl, video or disc. His voice cuts so deep and his range so wide that something tends to get lost in translation. What’s more? Listening to the original studio recordings deprives you of Wainwright’s remarkable – if not altogether sublime – onstage presence … the unmistakable trademark of being born into a family that made its entire living on the road.

That presence was on full display last night, as Wainwright delivered a gorgeous two-hour set in a pre-war gothic church downtown. The cavernous acoustics served him well, especially on brand-new numbers like “Candles” and “Perfect Man” … numbers that rely on textured harmonies throughout.

The main set included one song written by Wainwright’s father, two songs written by his (late) mother, an original about his daughter, and a series of ballads about those closest to him, before winding down with yet another heartfelt nod to his mother in the encore … the closing notes of which actually brought Wainwright to tears.

Somewhere in between, Teddy Thompson offered up some stunning vocals, Mark Ronson sat in on rhythm, and -during one song – Wainwright even donned a cardboard bust of Helena Bonham Carter (a reference to Bonham’s appearance in the video for “Out of the Game“).

The bottom line: After nearly 30 years in the business, Rufus Wainwright is still extremely passionate about his music … perhaps even moreso now than at any other point in his career. He’s got a tight band behind him, a slew of industry heavyweights surrounding him, and a one-year old daughter who’s genetically engineered to turn the music world on its ear someday.

Not bad for a dude who spent the first half of the aughts stone-blind on crystal meth.

Not bad at all, I’d say.

Update: Please do check out this slideshow of pics from the show, courtesy of the Artists Den (All pictures taken by Adam Macchia).

(Keep an eye out for a full-length video of last night’s show at Live From The Artist’s Den)

A Bag of Hammers is the only movie I’ve ever seen that sets out to empathize with the burden of being gay, poor, and/or left out in America, yet ultimately ends up condescending to all three. This is all incidental, of course.  But it’s also indicative of a much larger problem. That problem (in a nutshell): Semi-rich white people who want very desperately for you to believe they understand what it’s like to be poor and underprivileged.

The two main characters (one of which is played by John Ritter’s son, Jason) pose as graveyard valets in order to steal lavish cars from the rich during funeral ceremonies. I mean, sure, it sounds funny. But the writers are so completely inept in terms of understanding how the criminal underworld actually works that the entire premise winds up falling flat on its face.

Somewhere in between, that hot chick from Everything Must Go shows up, along with that soft-spoken, bald dude who played the nanny in Jerry Maguire. Meanwhile, Jason Ritter looks and sounds so much like his late father, you cannot help but think of his character as a very young Jack Tripper.

The bottom line: There’s very little about A Bag of Hammers that you cannot glean from watching the two-and-a-half minute trailer above. There’s a reason for that, actually. And that reason is that the other 82+ minutes of the film feel like little more than slapdash filler material … a bag of hammers, indeed, if ever there was one.

(A Bag of Hammers opens this week in New York and L.A., with a national rollout to follow)