Adulation is the motivation for a film called Paul Williams Still Alive, an intriguing documentary about the amazing rise and subsequent disappearance of the diminutive star who was a quintessential seventies show business figure. Stephen Kessler is a feature moviemaker of some note who convinced Williams to be filmed over several months in an attempt to capture why he seemingly disappeared and how his stardom waned.
Kessler, who also narrates, begins by attending a Williams concert in Winnipeg, where he met the artist and quickly gained Williams’ trust. What ensues is a fascinating story. Williams candidly talks of his lost years, his determination to come back, keep performing and composing, and to learn from past mistakes, but otherwise to never look back. “When I started composing,” he tells us, “it was a time of cover songs and ‘B sides. They weren’t hits, but then ‘We’ve Only Just Begun’ hit the charts.” His career skyrocketed, culminating in an Oscar for Best Song, “Evergreen,” in 1976, which Barbra Streisand sang in the remake of A Star is Born.
We see vintage clips of the late Karen Carpenter singing that corny but poignant ditty, which soon became the wedding song, and remains so to this day. Williams’ debut on The Tonight Show propelled him even higher. He would return some 50 times, a near record. “Making Johnny Carson laugh made me accomplish my life’s goal: to be not just a different-looking person, but a special one.” The film reveals two key challenges Williams faced growing up: a bad gene therapy that stunted his growth and a car accident that took his father’s life. But Williams conquered his self-doubts, and ended up a musical icon. Home movies taken during his drug-addiction years are made all the more revealing when he tells us, “My wives deserved better. Marianna [his current wife] got the man they thought they were getting before.”
We see him speaking at an addiction meeting in Houston in his capacity as a certified drug rehabilitation counselor, travel with him to a gig in the Philippines, and notice his innate sense of the presence of the camera, never playing to it. However, he wisely set a few rules about its not being intrusive. Paul Williams Still Alive is an informative look at a fallen star, perhaps on the rise again.
Josh Lucas is one of those likable actors who’s not quite a major star but who works constantly, plugging away, perhaps hoping for a signature role. He was seen recently in a small part as Charles Lindbergh in J. Edgar, Clint Eastwood’s ponderous biography of the controversial FBI founder. Lucas also starred on the well acted TV series The Firm, which NBC, for reasons known only to faceless corporate suits, buried and did little to promote. His latest movie is a starring role in Hide Away. Alas, it does little to accomplish any actor’s goal: make a film people will want to see.
Lucas portrays a character pretentiously billed only as “Young Mariner.” He’s a morose businessman who seems to have put his past life behind him and is seeking a new start. He buys a run-down sailboat and goes about restoring it. Imagine a film with long, picturesque shots of a lakefront, lots of scenes of menial tasks like preparing food or trying to get a rusty old engine to start, and you have an idea that this is a movie with little to say, but which will take some 90 minutes to do so. The Artist used nearly as many words in its own attempt to create a mood and depict a troubled soul turning inward. A supporting performance by the charismatic Israeli actress Ayelet Zurer can’t save this film. James Cromwell, one of Hollywood’s best character actors, is wasted in a minor role as a local sea dog who tells Lucas’s character where to get a new sail. I’m not kidding! That is about as dramatic as this self-indulgent snoozer ever gets. At least the water looked nice.
I love good movies about little-known events in history. Despite its mundane title, For Greater Glory is just that: a compelling tale of the Mexican government’s insane war against its country’s churches in general and priests in particular. The film, which follows the Cristero War that raged from 1926 to 1929, stars Cuban-born Andy García as retired General Enrique Gorostieta Velarde. At first he agreed to lead the anti-government guerrillas for monetary reasons alone, but soon he’s with them in the spirit of their cause as well, fighting with ragtag militia and cavalry against the well-armed Mexican army. The country’s mercurial president, Plutarco Elias Calles, portrayed by Panamanian-born Rubén Blades, called for no quarter against the rebels. His oppression of the Church was relentless and bloody. Peter O’Toole (whose eight Best Actor nominations will never be matched) is passionate as an expatriate English priest who knows his doom is nigh. There is one scene of the torture of a boy that served no purpose, and Eva Langoria of TV’s Desperate Housewives has too small a role as García’s wife. But the film is a stirring depiction of a valiant fight for religious freedom.
Jeffrey Lyons has been a movie critic for the past 42 years. He's currently heard nationally on Lyons Den radio and locally on WNYM radio. He?s the author of the new book, Stories my Father Told Me, Notes From The Lyons Den about his father's iconic Broadway column.
