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CategoryFilm Reviews

Posted Documentaries

SXSW: My Darling Vivian

Vivian Liberto Cash, Johnny Cash’s first wife and the mother of his four daughters, passed away on May 24th, 2005. This was a few months before Walk the Line (2005), the critically-acclaimed and award-winning Cash biopic starring Joaquin Phoenix, Reese Witherspoon and Ginnifer Goodwin, was released. Vivian didn’t live to see the film nor did she want to. The script circulated and the way it portrayed Vivian was far from the truth. It created a myth about Vivian as a vindictive woman who tried to get in the way of Cash’s music career.

In reality, Vivian Liberto was a complex woman. A strong-minded woman who was fiercely private and devoted to her husband and her children. The daughter of Italian-American Catholics in San Antonio, Texas, Vivian first met Johnny Cash in 1951 when she was a teenager and he was an Air Force cadet. They had an instant connection and exchanged love letters when Cash served abroad. When he returned in 1954, they married. Cash’s career took off. They moved to California and into Johnny Carson’s old home. They had four children together: Rosanne, Kathy, Cindy and Tara. Vivian had a difficult time with Cash’s fame. It was intrusive and put Vivian on guard. Cash spent more and more time away from the family, started using drugs and started a relationship with singer June Carter that would eventually lead to Vivian and Johnny’s divorce. Vivian wasn’t the perfect mother but she did what she could to raise her four children. She re-married and wrote a book about her life. But her desire for privacy meant the world didn’t really know or understand Vivian. By the time her book published, it was too little too late. A new myth would eclipse the truth.

Filmmaker Matt Riddlehoover’s new documentary My Darling Vivian sets the record straight about the woman behind the legend. The film features extensive home footage and photos. Only Vivian’s four daughters Rosanne, Kathy, Cindy and Tara are interviewed. There are no other talking heads, no other family members, friends, pop culture experts, historians etc. This documentary keeps it in the family. It’s easy to watch this film and immediately get defensive of Vivian. You might reconsider your feelings on Walk the Line and how it portrayed her. Of course there is some bias but I was impressed how frank and open the four daughters were about their mother. They discussed both the good and the bad about their parents. My Darling Vivian is a well-rounded and fairly intimate film about a misunderstood woman.

My Darling Vivian was set to have its world premiere at the 2020 SXSW Film Festival. Visit the official website for more information.

Posted Film Festivals

SXSW: Lapsis

In a parallel world, Quantum computers are connected via an internet run by extensive fiber-optic cables. These cables are connected to Quantum cubes hidden in the forest. A cottage industry is born where freelance cablers make some quick money running these cables from cube to cube.

Ray (Dean Imperial) is a delivery man who is fairly out of the loop of today’s technology. His kid brother Jamie (Babe Howard) is a tech wiz but he’s suffering from Omnia, a type of chronic fatigue syndrome. After experimenting with a variety of treatments, Ray decides to put Jamie into a treatment facility. The problem is that Ray can’t afford the the hefty medical bill with just his day job. So he signs up to be a cabler. Ray starts off on the wrong foot when he’s given another person’s username, Lapsis Beeftech. The cabling system is highly political and cablers gamify to make the most money possible. Ray meets Anna (Madeline Wise), a jaded cabler who catches on to the predicament Ray finds himself in. Can Ray just keep his head down enough to finish his cabling gig and get the proper treatment for Jamie? And who was Lapsis Beeftech?

Lapsis is an exploration of how the gig economy dehumanizes all in the name of money. Ray is a complete outsider. Cabling to him is a means to an end. A way for him to save his brother. But in the cabling world everyone is out to make a quick buck, at the cost of others. It’s a bizarre little film. I didn’t quite fully understand why people had to cable or what those Quantum cubes actually were. But as far as science fiction films go, this one was fairly enjoyable and offers just the right insight into the human condition.

Lapsis was set to have its world premiere at the 2020 SXSW Film Festival. Visit the official website for more information.

Posted Documentaries

SXSW: Good Ol Girl

“Texas is the place where so much of the entire West was born. There is that sense of freedom. And it has to do with ownership of space.”

Joyce Gibson Roach, Folklorist and author of The Cowgirls

Directed by Sarah Brennan Kolb, Good Ol Girl explores the struggle between long-held traditions and female independence and the slow fade of rural life. This documentary profiles three cowgirls as they try to forge a life for themselves in a man’s world. These are women who want to show that they can compete with the guys and do what they do but still be a woman in their own right.

Mandy is a rancher who raises beef cattle and bison. She’s religious and firmly traditional. She struggles with the internal battle of opposing desires: to thrive as an independent business woman and to be a wife and mother. 

Sara is the next in line to run the family ranch. However, she bucks with tradition and decides to pursue her dream of becoming a lawyer. 

Martha desperately wants to work in agriculture but can’t find a job. With the encroaching suburbs, land is far more valuable for housing development than it is for ranching making job options scarce.

“I was born and bred to be a cowgirl.”

Martha Santos

Filmmaker Kolb grew up in Texas and says this about what she observed:

“Strict adherence to ‘traditional’ gender roles, political powerlessness over one’s own body, and the assumption that a woman’s place was safe inside a ranch-style house, permeated the lives around me. Like most women, I discovered that accepting the dissonance between the person you are on the inside, and the face you present to the world, is part of growing up.”

Good Ol Girl effectively demonstrates the struggle these women face to live within the confines of their strictly gendered upbringing while also seeking independence through their respective careers. The documentary felt uneven at times. Mandy’s story was far more interesting. For those of you sensitive to footage of dead animals, there is a particularly jarring scene where Mandy discovers one of her heifers died during childbirth. I still can’t get that image out of my mind.

Good Ol Girl was set to have its world premiere at the 2020 SXSW Film Festival. Visit the official website for more information.

Posted Female Filmmakers

SXSW: Crestone

A group of SoundCloud rappers live in isolation in the desert of Crestone, Colorado. The end of the world is nigh and this group of friends spend those final days making music, getting tattoos, eating the last of their food stores and smoking weed. In Crestone they reconnect with themselves and their music. Their seclusion sparks their creativity. However, they ignore the warning signs that they must flee their remote haven. In the midst of it all, a woman director is filming them for her documentary, capturing their spirited rebellion.

“Performing and being became indistinguishable.”

“What does music sound like if there is no one left to repost and share it?”

Directed and co-written by Marnie Ellen Hertzler, Crestone is a hybrid feature film/documentary putting real SoundCloud rappers (Huckleberry, Keem, Mijo Mehico, Benz Rowm, RyBundy, Sadboytrapps, Champloo Sloppy, and Phong Winna) in an imaginary pre-apocalyptic world. Crestone is Hertzler’s debut feature film and it’s quite an auspicious start. Hertzler mixes filmmaking styles, enhances visuals with added designs and creates an inherently contradictory cinematic world by placing internet musicians in a remote natural landscape. So many of us right now are living in seclusion as the coronavirus spreads across the globe. In a weird way, I felt a connection with this group of rappers whose lifestyle is so completely different from my own with the exception of that I too am stuck in isolation and working on my craft.

“I am drawn to this group of people as a filmmaker because of their ability to completely and confidently reinvent themselves over and over. Their transformation isn’t simply a wardrobe change or a new playlist; it is an entire upheaval of their previous lives.”

Marnie Ellen Hertzler

Crestone was set to have its world premiere at the 2020 SXSW Film Festival. Visit the official website for more information about this movie.

Posted Film Reviews

SXSW: An Elephant in the Room

Children should be seen AND heard. Especially when they have something important to say. Filmmaker Katrine Philp’s new documentary An Elephant in the Room explores the grief children experience from the loss of a parent. The film follows several New Jersey children who suffered the loss of their mom or dad, and in some cases both, and receive group therapy at The Good Grief. During therapy they’re able to connect with peers who understand what they’re going through and counselors help them process their emotions and this new stage in life with lengthy discussions, art projects and play. 

“One of the worst things after my father died was the silence of people not knowing what to say, avoiding me, maybe struck with fear of how to talk about death and grief. I hope this film will make us all braver when we encounter people who have lost and I think the children in the film can help us with that.”

Katrine Philp

An Elephant in the Room is a sensitive and enlightening look at what it means for a child to grieve the loss of a parent. The film is effective in its simplicity. There are no talking heads and no narration. The focus here is on the children. It strips away anything that would get in the way of allowing the children to have their say. We hear from Kimmy, Nicky, Peter, Nora, Nolan and Mikayla as they speak with their surviving parents, siblings, counselors and other kids about what they’re going through. Yes this film is heartbreaking and for some it will be difficult to watch. However, grief is so isolating and it’s so important that we connect with others. This film helps us connect virtually with these children as they grapple with their new realities.

An Elephant in the Room was set to premiere at the 2020 SXSW Film Festival. It recently won first place in the Documentary Feature Competition. For more information about this film, visit the Good Company Pictures’ website.

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