2022 AWARD SEASON BEGINS

The season has officially begun to bestow awards on some of the most compelling, dazzling and moving works of cinema that were released this year. The first to be announced are from a wide section of regional film critic groups who will bring attention to films and performances that should be recognized for their outstanding achievement.

The National Board of Review announced their winners today with "Top Gun: Maverick", the Tom Cruise-lead sequel and the year's biggest box-office champ unexpectedly taking their top prize of Best Film. The New York Film Critics Circle selected "Tár", Todd Field's riveting drama that features an electrifying performance from star, Cate Blanchett, as Best Film while The Gotham Awards, the New York-based group that honors independent cinema and television, handed their Best Feature to "Everything Everywhere All at Once", the absurdist comedy-drama by Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert.

So far, what has been generating significant award buzz to date has been writer/director Martin McDonagh's Irish comedy, "The Banshees of Inisherin" along with co-star, Colin Farrell; Ke Huy Quan and his heart-warming comeback performance in "Everything Everywhere All at Once"; the delightful, "Marcel the Shell with Shoes On" which has been accepted as an animated film depsite being set in live-action world; Charlotte Wells and her astonishing directorial debut, "Aftersun" and the films's stars, Paul Mescal and Frankie Corio; And the outstanding acting work from Janelle Monáe in "Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery", Keke Palmer in "Nope" and Danielle Deadwyler in "Till" has been highlighted. This is all just getting started so I'm sure there will be a lot more interesting selections to come.

Here are the 2023 award winners by the National Board of Review:

Best Film: "Top Gun: Maverick"
Best Director: Steven Spielberg, "The Fabelmans"
Best Adapted Screenplay: Edward Berger, Lesley Paterson and Ian Stokell, "All Quiet on the Western Front"
Best Original Screenplay: Martin McDonagh, "The Banshees of Inisherin"
Best Actor: Colin Farrell, "The Banshees of Inisherin"
Best Actress: Michelle Yeoh, "Everything Everywhere All at Once"
Best Supporting Actor: Brendan Gleeson, "The Banshees of Inisherin"
Best Supporting Actress: Janelle Monáe, "Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery"
Breakthrough Performance: Danielle Deadwyler, "Till"
Breakthrough Performance: Gabriel LaBelle, "The Fabelmans"
Best Directorial Debut: Charlotte Wells, "Aftersun" 

Outstanding Achievement in Cinematography: Claudio Miranda, "Top Gun: Maverick"
Best Documentary: "Sr."
Best International Film: "Close"
Best Animated Feature: "Marcel the Shell with Shoes On"
Best Ensemble: "Women Talking"
NBR Freedom of Expression Awards: "All the Beauty and the Bloodshed" and "Argentina, 1985"

Here are the winners of the 2022 New York Film Critics Circle Awards:

Best Film: "Tár"
Best Director: S.S. Rajamouli, "RRR"
Best Screenplay: Martin McDonagh, "The Banshees of Inisherin"
Best Actress: Cate Blanchett, "Tár"
Best Actor: Colin Farrell, "The Banshees of Inisherin" and "After Yang"
Best Supporting Actress: Keke Palmer, "Nope"
Best Supporting Actor: Ke Huy Quan, "Everything Everywhere All at Once"
Best Cinematography: Claudio Miranda, "Top Gun: Maverick"
Best Non-Fiction Film: "All the Beauty and the Bloodshed"
Best International Film: "EO" (Poland)
Best Animated Feature Film: "Marcel the Shell With Shoes On"
Best First Film: Charlotte Wells, "Aftersun"

Here are the winners of the 2022 Gotham Awards (Film):

Best Feature: "Everything Everywhere All at Once"
Best Screenplay: Todd Field, "Tár"
Outstanding Lead Performance: Danielle Deadwyler, "Till"
Outstanding Supporting Performance: Ke Huy Quan, "Everything Everywhere All at Once"
Breakthrough Performer: Gracija Filipovic, "Murina"
Bingham Ray Breakthrough Director Award: Charlotte Wells, "Aftersun"
Best Documentary Feature: "All That Breathes"
Best International Feature: "Happening"

And the Film Independent Spirit Award nominations were announced November 22nd with the big arthouse blockbuster, "Everything Everywhere All at Once" leading the pack with eight nominations. One major change this year is that the acting categories are no longer separated by gender (like the Gotham Awards did last year) which means there are now ten nominees in Lead Performance and Supporting Performance and in the new Breakthrough Performance, there are five (but still only one winner).The Spirit Awards will be held on March 4, 2023 (eight days before the Oscars) at their usual spot at the Santa Monica Pier however at this time, there is no official broadcast sponsor will air the ceremony.

Here are the nomination of the 2023 Film Independent Spirit Award:

Best Feature:

"Bones and All"
"Everything Everywhere All At Once"
"Our Father, the Devil"
"Tár"
"Women Talking"

Best Director:

Todd Field, "Tár"
Kogonada, "After Yang"
Daniel Kwan & Daniel Scheinert, "Everything Everywhere All At Once"
Sarah Polley, "Women Talking"
Halina Reijn, "Bodies Bodies Bodies"

Best Screenplay:

Lena Dunham, "Catherine Called Birdy" Todd Field, "Tár"
Kogonada, "After Yang"
Daniel Kwan & Daniel Scheinert, "Everything Everywhere All At Once"
Sarah Polley, "Women Talking"

Best First Feature:

"Aftersun"
"Emily the Criminal"
"The Inspection"
"Murina"
"Palm Trees and Power Lines"

Best First Screenplay:

Joel Kim Booster, "Fire Island"
Jamie Dack and Audrey Findlay; Story by Jamie Dack, "Palm Trees and Power Lines"
K.D. Dávila, "Emergency"
Sarah DeLappe; Story by Kristen Roupenian, "Bodies Bodies Bodies"
John Patton Ford, "Emily the Criminal"

Best Lead Performance:

Cate Blanchett, "Tár"
Dale Dickey, "A Love Song"
Mia Goth, "Pearl"
Regina Hall, "Honk for Jesus. Save Your Soul."
Paul Mescal, "Aftersun"
Aubrey Plaza, "Emily the Criminal"
Jeremy Pope, "The Inspection"
Andrea Riseborough, "To Leslie"
Taylor Russell, "Bones and All"
Michelle Yeoh, "Everything Everywhere All At Once"

Best Supporting Performance:

Jamie Lee Curtis, "Everything Everywhere All At Once"
Brian Tyree Henry, "Causeway"
Nina Hoss, "Tár"
Brian d’Arcy James, "The Cathedral" 

Ke Huy Quan, "Everything Everywhere All At Once"
Trevante Rhodes, "Bruiser"
Theo Rossi, "Emily the Criminal"
Mark Rylance, "Bones and All"
Jonathan Tucker, "Palm Trees and Power Lines"
Gabrielle Union, "The Inspection"

Best Breakthrough Performance:

Frankie Corio, "Aftersun"
Gracija Filipović, "Murina"
Stephanie Hsu, "Everything Everywhere All At Once"
Lily McInerny, "Palm Trees and Power Lines"
Daniel Zolghadri, "Funny Pages"

Best Documentary:

"All That Breathes"
"All the Beauty and the Bloodshed"
"A House Made of Splinters"
"Midwives"
"Riotsville, U.S.A."

Best International Film:

"Corsage" (Austria/Luxembourg)
"Joyland" (Pakistan)
"Leonor Will Never Die" (Philippines)
"Return to Seoul" (South Korea)
"Saint Omer" (France)

Best Cinematography:

Florian Hoffmeister, "Tár"
Hélène Louvart, "Murina"
Gregory Oke, "Aftersun"
Eliot Rockett, "Pearl"
Anisia Uzeyman, "Neptune Frost"

Best Editing:

Ricky D’Ambrose, "The Cathedral"
Dean Fleischer Camp and Nick Paley, "Marcel the Shell with Shoes On"
Blair McClendon, "Aftersun"
Paul Rogers, "Everything Everywhere All At Once"
Monika Willi, "Tár"

John Cassavetes Award (given to the best feature made for under $1,000,000):

"The African Desperate"
"A Love Song"
"The Cathedral"
"Holy Emy"
"Something in the Dirt"

Someone To Watch Award:

Adamma Ebo, "Honk for Jesus. Save Your Soul."
Nikyatu Jusu, "Nanny"
Araceli Lemos, "Holy Emy"

Truer Than Fiction Award (presented to an emerging director of non-fiction features who has not yet received significant recognition):

Isabel Castro, "Mija"
Reid Davenport, "I Didn’t See You There"
Rebeca Huntt, "Beba"

Robert Altman Award (given to one film’s director, casting director and ensemble cast):

"Women Talking"

IRENE CARA (1959 - 2022)

Irene Cara, the beautiful and gifted singer and actor, best known for her film roles in "Sparkle" and "Fame" and singing the theme song for the movie, "Flashdance" has sadly passed away on November 25th at the age of sixty-three. No cause of death has been disclosed at this time.

Born and raised in the Bronx, this Puerto-Rican-Cuban performer displayed signs of her gifts early as young child, learning to play piano by ear and excelling in dance and voice lessons. She became a regular on the educational program, "The Electric Company" for two years beginning in 1971 and recorded Spanish-language albums. By the time she was a teenager, Cara had appeared on the professional stage, on and off-Broadway, and introduced a character on the soap-opera, "Love of Life".

She made her feature film acting debut in 1975 in "Aaron Loves Angela", a teenage comedy-drama inspired by "Romeo and Juliet" from filmmaker, Gordon Parks, Jr. This lead to the first role Cara is best known for: the title character in the musical-drama, "Sparkle", the youngest sister in the singing girl-group, Sister and the Sisters. Set in Harlem at the end of the 1950's, the film follows these impoverished girls as they climb briefly to the top of the music business before coming apart due to addiction, romantic strife and personal issues. Despite the music score written by Curtis Mayfield and a hit soundtrack album that featured Aretha Franklin performing the songs from the film, "Sparkle" was not a big box-office success. But the film would go on to become a popular cult classic, even being remade in 2012 with Whitney Houston (a big fan of the movie) in her final film role.

The other movie role Cara is best remembered is in "Fame". This 1980 Alan Parker directed film follows various students attending the High School of Performing Arts in New York, chronicling their lives and hardships as they go through each school year. Cara played Coco Hernandez, a dynamic talent who was a student accepted in all three different departments: Drama, Music, and Dance. The actress performed three of the most memorable songs from the movie; "Hot Lunch Jam", "Out Here On My Own" and the title tune. "Fame" was essentially an arthouse film that had broad commercial appeal, becoming a major hit with audiences along with a soundtrack that would become a chart-topping, multi-platinum album. The film was nominated for six Academy Awards, winning for Best Original Score and Best Original Song with "Fame" which Cara performed during the ceremony.

"Fame" made Cara a star, giving her some opportunities to work in television and film. But it was music that was Cara's first love and where she achieved her greatest success. One of her biggest hits would be the title song for the 1983 movie, "Flashdance", a surprise box-office smash about a young dancer (Jennifer Beals) aspiring to become a professional ballerina while working by day at a steel mill. Cara co-wrote "Flashdance... What a Feeling" with Keith Forsey and Giorgio Moroder (best known for their work at the time with Donna Summer) and the song took off with the help of the very popular film, becoming a worldwide number one hit and winning the team the Oscar for Best Original Song. Cara would follow this with her second studio album, "What a Feeling" which was a moderate success with the singles, "Why Me?", "The Dream (Hold On to Your Dream)" and "Breakdance".

But by 1984, Cara had grown extremely unhappy with her record company, Network Records who she felt had not given her proper financial compensation for her first album or for the single, "Flashdance... What a Feeling". She decided to sue and while it took almost ten years, Cara finally won a $1.5 million dollar settlement in 1993. However, the company declared bankruptcy which made it impossible for her to be compensated. Cara also believed that she was blacklisted during this time due to the on-going lawsuit, making no record label and few film producers interested in working with her.

It's unfortunate Cara's career had been effectively stifled. She had continued to find some work after the lawsuit, making one more studio album, "Carasmatic" in 1987, occasional film and stage work and touring Europe. She was an incredible talent yet she was unable to reach her full potential simply due to her standing up for herself.  

I will always fondly remember Cara for her performance in "Fame" which remains one of my all-time favorite movies. As Coco (which was rewritten for her after producers heard her singing voice), she embodied a feisty, confident, charming and effortlessly sensual person which was not common at the time for a woman of color to be seen on screen as a three-dimensional character. Cara brought an exquisite inner light to her role that was so captivating, it has stayed in my thoughts all these years later. 

2022 AFI FILM FEST VIEWING DIARY

The AFI Film festival has ended and it was another solid event filled with amazing films from around the world, screening right in the heart of Hollywood where I was able to conveniently stroll to the theater right from my home. I have always loved this fest as it offers the first opportunity to see international films that have received awards and critical praise at previous film festivals while also delivering world premieres of intriguing Hollywood movies that are vying for award attention. With the fest being condensed down to only five days, this made it even more challenging to see all the movies I had wanted. Scheduling was certainly a complicated task for me by having to choose between which movie I really wanted to see, with many either playing at the same time or a movie would be starting while I was in the middle of watching another film. But I managed to do okay, seeing six films including the red carpet premiere of "She Said".

I have been attending AFI Fest for many years and it just occurred to me to I had never written about the movies I saw there. So here is my first time with a few reviews of films from the fest.

The first movie I saw was "Nanny", a haunting, psychological thriller that cleverly merges family dysfunction, West African folklore and a hint of the supernatural. Aisha (a mesmerizing Anna Diop), a Senegalese immigrant, begins a new job as a domestic care worker for the daughter of a wealthy New York family. Things begin well with the mother, Amy (Michelle Monaghan) but tensions build between them as they clash over what to feed the child and Amy's failure to pay Aisha on time. And the arrival of Amy's photographer husband (Morgan Spector) from a business trip only creates more stress in the household. Aisha is willing to endure this privileged family because she is trying to save up money to bring her young son over from Senegal. While Aisha is focused and determined on achieving a better life for herself and young son, she does allow her guard down long enough to tentatively begin a relationship with Malik (Sinqua Walls), the doorman of her employer's building. But she is soon being haunted by an eerie presence that begins in her dreams before spilling over as surreal visions in her waking life.

Writer/director, Nikyatu Jusu makes her feature film debut with "Nanny" which went on to receive the Dramatic Grand Jury Prize at this year's Sundance fest and capturing the attention of Jason Blum of Blumhouse Productions, home to several horror franchises, who went on to executive produce the film. Jusu has more on her mind that creating a creepy atmosphere, thoughtfully touching on the complications of the Black experience while trying to navigate through white society and the many indignities that domestic workers have to suffer through in order to survive. "Nanny" is further enhanced by the exquisite camerawork by Rina Yang and a powerfully captivating performance by Diop. There is a shocking twist which is absolutely heartbreaking, leading to a finale that comes across feeling rushed and obscure. But "Nanny" is still an outstanding, accomplished debut feature by a promising new filmmaker.

The winner of Silver Lion Grand Jury prize along with the Lion of the Future award for director and co-writer, Alice Diop at the 2022 Venice Film Festival and France's official selection for Best International Film for this year's Oscars, "Saint Omer" is a courtroom drama based on a real-life French case that occurred in 2013 involving the unimaginable crime of a young mother accused of murdering her fifteen-month old baby. But what makes this even more chilling and highly unusual is that Laurence Coly (Guslagie Malanga), who came from a middle-class family originally from Senegal, claims that it was witchcraft that caused her to commit this horrific offense. Rama (Kayije Kagame), a professor and novelist, has traveled from Paris to Saint Omer to watch the trial for research on a book about the case. As she learns more about Laurence, Rama, a few months pregnant and also Senegalese, finds herself making a personal connection with her, particularly regarding the complicated relationships each has with their mothers.

Diop, French-born to Senegalese parents, had previously only made documentaries but after attending the court case of Fabienne Kabou, the woman who was ultimately convicted of this crime in 2016, she was inspired to try and recreate the experience as a feature film, reflecting on how her home country views her African heritage and the difficult challenges that can come from motherhood. Taking place largely in the courtroom, we learn about Coly's background through her testimony, with her being raised to be a proper Frenchwoman and the conflicted bond between mother and daughter. Deftly penetrating and emotionally devastating, Diop has artfully reimagined the standard true-crime melodrama, focusing less on the lurid crime and more on the accused, exploring her trauma as a tragic motivation and possibly provoke some sense of sympathy. And hearing the world-weary voice of Nina Simone on her version of "Little Girl Blue", effectively used as a coda near the end of the film, left me completely wrecked.

And even though we know the eventual outcome, director, Maria Schrader has managed to create plenty of suspense and tension in "She Said", a riveting drama that looks into the investigation of the long history of allegations involving sexual misconduct by film producer Harvey Weinstein against many women, leading to the start of the #MeToo movement. Sexual harassment and abuse is hardly specific only to Hollywood yet from the very beginning it had become a consistent arrangement for the powerful men in the industry to prey on young, aspiring women just looking for an opportunity to work and has remained an accepted open secret until recently when Jodi Kantor (Zoe Kazan), a reporter for the New York Times began exploring the whispers of these crimes. After teaming up with fellow journalist, Megan Twohey (Carey Mulligan), they had no difficulty finding several women who were victimized by Weinstein yet they refused to speak on the record, either due to NDA settlements or the fear of not being believed. The team also discover that they are not the first to take on this story but once Weinstein ever got word of an investigation, the reporting would mysteriously end. Luckily, their editors (played by Patricia Clarkson and Andre Braugher) give their full support, helping to play defense against the powerful movie mogul.

What makes "She Said" stand out from other films involving investigative reporting is that it's told from a feminist perspective; women working together to help and support each other by pushing back against the male dominated, systemic structures of power. And while Kantor and Twohey's gender certainly gave them some advantage, displaying empathy and a willingness to listen without judgement, it was still a considerable struggle to get these women to feel comfortable enough to risk allowing their names to be revealed to the world for this story. The pacing of the film can be sluggish at times and while I know a big part of a reporter's job is to investigate, the many scenes of the women having conversations on their phones can feel a bit monotonous. Mulligan and Kazan make a great team, capturing the fierce determination by these reporters to get answers. But also the women's exhaustion and guilt of dedicating long hours to their work while sacrificing valuable time away from their families, nothing at all like what Redford and Hoffman had to cope with in "All The President's Men".

COMING SOON

I had recently watched "Dead Ringer", a campy horror film from 1964 where Bette Davis has the opportunity to wildly devour the scenery two times in one movie. She plays identical twin sisters who have been estranged for years: one sister is dowdy, running a seedy bar and struggling financially. The other is glamourous, wealthy and has recently become a widow which is the reason for their reunion. Not to give any spoilers but let's just say that greed and jealousy leads to murder.

The reason why I bring this up is that in Tilda Swinton's upcoming film, "The Eternal Daughter" she appears in two different roles yet here she is playing mother and daughter. The story involves these two women returning to their former home that was once a stately manor but has recently become a shabby hotel that is nearly vacant. Now that they are back in this house, they are forced to deal with their mysterious past and confront long-buried secrets.

This is the latest from filmmaker, Joanna Hogg who brought us the indie drama, "The Souvenir" and the sequel which starred Swinton's daughter, Honor Swinton Byrne. And I'm fairly certain that "The Eternal Daughter" will not have much in common with "Dead Ringer" beyond the lead actress playing dual roles and a dark, creepy element to the story.

"The Eternal Daughter" is due in US theaters on December 2, 2022

2022 AFI FILM FESTIVAL

The American Film Institute will be bringing their brief yet robust annual film fest to the heart of Hollywood at the TCL Chinese Theatres on November 2nd to 6th. The Opening Night Film selected will be "Selena Gomez: My Mind and Me", a documentary by Alek Keshishian on the actress and pop singer which chronicles the pressures of stardom while she has open and honest conversation around her own mental health.



The other Red Carpet Premieres are "Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths", Alejandro G. Iñárritu's latest feature about a Mexican journalist (Daniel Gimenez Cacho) who also creates films living in Los Angeles who takes a jounrey back to his home country, grappling with indentity, success and familial bonds; "She Said", a feature film by Maria Schrader, details two New York Times reporters (Carey Mulligan and Zoe Kazan) investigating the subject of sexual assault in Hollywood and the determination to shatter the years of silence, propelling the #Metoo movement; "The Son", Florian Zeller's follow-up to his Oscar-winning film, "The Father", has Hugh Jackman as a divorced man recently remarried and the complicated relationship with his troubled teenage son from his previous marriage; Guillermo del Toro is delivering his version of "Pinnochio" with a whimsical, stop-motion animated film set in 1930's Italy; and "Living" is a British reimaging of Akira Kurosawa’s masterwork "Ikiru" now set in in post-World War II London with Bill Nighy as civil servant who discovers he has an uncurable illness and decides to make a final change to his mundane life before departing this world.







Some of the Special Screenings will include actor, Sarah Polley's first feature film as a director in ten years, "Women Talking" which details eight women living in an isolated religious community struggling with reconciling their reality with their faith. Rooney Mara, Jessie Buckley, Claire Foy, Ben Whishaw and Frances McDormand star; "Nanny", a creepy, horror drama from first-time writer/director, Nikyatu Jusu, follows an undocumented Senegalese woman (Anna Diop) working as a nanny for a wealthy Manhattan family, hoping to eventually be able to bring her child over she was forced to leave behind, while suffering horrific nightmares that threatens her sanity. Michelle Monaghan, Morgan Spector and Leslie Uggams co-star; The latest from director, Alice Rohrwacher ("Happy as Lazzaro") is "Le Pupille", a magical fable about a group of rebellious, young girls at a boarding school who are blessed with good fortune during wartime; "Is That Black Enough For You?!?", the film critic Elvis Mitchell's first time as a director which he constructs a warm and joyous history of African-American life represented throughout cinema.





This year's Guest Artistic Director will be Ava DuVernay, the celebrated filmmaker behind "Middle of Nowhere", "Selma" and "A Wrinkle in Time". She will present three noteworthy, independent feature films: "Hellion" (2014) by Kat Candler, "Mosquita y Mari" (2012) by Aurora Guerrero and "Yelling To The Sky" (2011) from Victoria Mahoney, which will put a spotlight on female directors who were able to creative outstanding works with limited resources.







And the Closing Night film will be the US premiere of "The Fabelmans", Steven Spielberg's semi-autobiographical, coming-of-age drama involving Sammy Fabelman (Gabriel LaBelle), a young boy who falls in love with cinema while coping with family conflict which will ultimately shape him as a filmmaker. Michelle Williams, Paul Dano, Seth Rogen, and Judd Hirsch also star.



The rest of the AFI Film Fest will include new works of world cinema, documentaries, short film competition and AFI Conservatory Showcase that will feature the short films by recent graduates of AFI.

For the complete list of films and to purchase tickets and passes, please click below:

AFI 2022

COMING SOON

For his fourth feature film, Damien Chazelle is taking on the very early days of Hollywood with "Babylon", a time that was filled with excess and decadence. Set in the 1920s, during the transition from silent to sound films, where we follows Manny Torres (newcomer, Diego Calva), a young man trying to break into the movies and lands an opportunity as a film assistant. This leads to him getting involved in the eccentric, carefree lives of Jack Conrad (Brad Pitt), a hard-partying, major movie star and Nellie LaRoy (Margot Robbie), an aspiring actress. 

From the looks of the trailer, "Babylon" will be a wildly extravagant, behind-the scenes drama that digs deep into the dark, underbelly of the movie business, an industry that doesn't seem to have changed all that much in a little over one hundred years. There is also an impressive starry ensemble involved that includes Katherine Waterston, Lukas Haas, Eric Roberts, Olivia Wilde, Jean Smart and Tobey Maguire.

"Babylon" is due in US theaters on December 23, 2022

MOONAGE DAYDREAM (2022)

Directed by Brett Morgen



Where & When: TCL Chinese Theatres IMAX, September 18, 2022 12:20 PM



I still remember clearly the complete shock and disbelief I felt when I heard the news that David Bowie, the influential, enigmatic rock-star alien, had passed away in 2016. With his sensual, otherworldly essence, he gave the impression that he would simply exist forever. Bowie even released a complete new album, "Black Star" two days after he died. At only sixty-nine, the British performance artist, although best known for his innovative music also painted and acted on stage and screen, seemed to have his life tragically cut far too soon. As a musician, Bowie was a true chameleon, continuously shifting and expanding the possibilities of rock & roll. And using his lithe body as a colorful, exhilarating canvas, he helped alter the rigid ideology on gender norms and visual presentation.

Brett Morgen, the filmmaker who has created meditative non-fiction works that have largely focused on seminal figures in pop culture like Hollywood producer, Bob Evans; the still rocking, The Rolling Stones; primatologist, Jane Goodall and the late rock performer, Kurt Cobain, has set his sights on Bowie. "Moonage Daydream", a wildly kinetic mosaic of sound and vision, reflects on the creative life of the rock musician told in his own words, assembled through a series of interviews the artist had given throughout his lengthy career.

Broken up through the different eras of Bowie's intriguing artistic journey, we begin expectedly yet briefly with his early days as an androgynous, shaggy haired mod-rocker before morphing into the genderqueer space alien with a mullet of flaming red-hair, backed-up with his hard-rocking band, the Spiders from Mars. Following this first brush with massive stardom, Bowie shifted gears, not wanting to be defined by Ziggy Stardust, moving into Aladdin Sane with the now-iconic album cover image of the colorful lighting bolt across his face. After a few more albums, he abandoned glam-rock altogether, moving into the Thin White Duke phase and "plastic soul", his homage to American r&b and soul music. Trying to escape years of deep drug addiction in Los Angeles, Bowie heads to Europe, ending up in Germany. Clear-eyed and inspired, he begins to experiment with electronic, ambient sounds, creating a trio of albums later referred to as the "Berlin Trilogy".

With "Moonage Daydream", which is the title of the 1971 song that introduces us to Ziggy Stardust, Morgen has crafted a masterful work of art that poetically explores the roots of Bowie's considerable, wide-ranging artistry. Serving also as editor and utilizing a collision of expressionistic effects, he effectively has Bowie discuss many of his influences and motivations while visualizing his tremendous impact throughout using zippy fast-cuts of various media with the musician's work as a musician and actor. This is the first film about Bowie that has been authorized by his estate, allowing Morgen to use all of his music and have access to Bowie's extensive footage from his personal archives, much of it rarely seen before publicly. Tony Visconti, a musician and producer who had worked with Bowie since his second album in 1969, serves as the film's music producer, helping to put together previously unreleased live tracks with newly created remixed songs for the soundtrack .

Throughout each of his aesthetic and musical transformations, Bowie is revealed to be a true trendsetter and innovator, boldly expressing a queer, rebellious spirit by becoming the face of bisexual chic, wearing make-up and normalizing crossdressing at a time when the world was even less open to such provocative acts. Bowie realized early the power of using short-form film to create alluring imagery and enhance his musical vision, long before people began wanting their MTV in 1981. And he was a natural additional to the music channel which helped propel him into becoming a major pop music superstar with his worldwide smash album, "Let's Dance". Yet the intense pressure and high expectations of this type of fame made Bowie retreat back into his comfort zone of more esoteric musical stylings.

My only real criticism about "Moonage Daydream" would be it's length. While I would be of the mindset that there could never be too much Bowie yet after a while during the one hundred and forty minute runtime, the film does begin to drag a bit and feel overextended largely due to the unstructured format. And I was also left to wonder about the complete exclusion to mention some of the many people, friends, family and colleagues, who contributed significantly to Bowie's success. Thinking this was a creative decision until I saw the segment dedicated to his romance to Iman, the Somali supermodel who is Bowie's widow and love of his life.

Yet it seems strange to completely omit any mention of Angela Bowie, his free-spirited, first wife who clearly had some influence over his early image and opened his mind to a broader, more alternative lifestyle. And she is the mother of his first child, Duncan, now a filmmaker, who went by "Zowie" for the first ten years of his life. The couple both acknowledged their relationship was highly tumultuous with Bowie later admitting that he had married her so she could work in Britain. But they were together for a decade so there might have been something that could have been said, if only briefly.

If you were looking for a documentary filled with warm remembrances by several talking heads, straightforward live performances or salacious details regarding Bowie's drug abuse and various romantic flings, then you will certainly be disappointed. Morgen was far more interested in creating an introspective, visually explosive experience. "Moonage Daydream" is a thrilling, experimental celebration of a true creative genius told in a mesmerizing, deconstructed way that I think the musician would have greatly appreciated.