Tag Archives: Alan Hunter

How to Sidewalk – 2023

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Birmingham’s Sidewalk Film Festival is a festival which packs a lot of action, films, workshops, panels, and parties into a single weekend – the last full weekend in August before college football begins (this is Alabama, after all). The 2023 edition, which ended on August 27, was the 25th Annual Sidewalk. I have been going for most of those years and realized that my Sidewalk tee shirt from 2003 was older than many of the people around me on Opening Night.

In the years before I moved back to Birmingham, I would get a hotel room downtown on Sidewalk weekend, park the car, and walk everywhere. Last year, I tried commuting from my house south of town to downtown for the weekend’s events. In the process, I found that I was missing things I wanted to see.

John Hand Building, Birmingham

This year, I went back to the tried-and-true hotel plan and booked a room at the Elyton Hotel at the “Heaviest Corner on Earth” – the intersection of 20th Street and 1st Avenue N. The “Heaviest Corner” designation is a relic from the early days of skyscrapers and Birmingham’s “Magic City” boom years, when skyscrapers ranging from ten to twenty-one stories were built between 1902 and 1912 on each corner of the intersection. The Elyton is in the sixteen-story Empire Building, catty-corner from the twenty-one story John Hand Building – still one of the most impressive tall buildings downtown.

Before the pandemic and other complications arose in my world, I averaged seeing two or three movies a week in movie theatres. They aren’t made for small screens and I don’t like to watch them on small screens. Now, though, I depend on the annual Sidewalk Fest to splurge. Over the years I have learned “how to Sidewalk” and, to use a much-overused word, I “curated” a list of my weekend movie destinations. In addition to four nights of “Spotlight” films (“Alabama,” “Life & Liberty,” “Shout LGBTQ+,” and “Black Lens”), the festival screens over 300 titles (shorts and features) over three days on nine screens within walking distance in downtown. It’s important to plan, knowing there’s no way to see everything you might want to see. In the early years, I tried to catch as many titles as possible. My record, on a weekend when I saw a lot of shorts screenings, was thirty-two titles under my belt; nowadays, I know what I would be most interested in and draw up a more reasonable and relaxed schedule. I have seven screenings on the list this year.

OPENING NIGHT

After checking in, unpacking, and settling into my room on Friday, I headed up to the rooftop bar, Moonshine, to check out the views. To the south, there are views of the railroad tracks that run through the center of the city, Railroad Park, the sprawling UAB campus and Children’s of Alabama hospital, the Five Points South and Highland Park neighborhoods crawling up Red Mountain, and the ubiquitous Alexander Shunnarah law firm billboard perched atop the old Bank for Savings Building.

To the north, the central city skyline dominates. What stands out for me in that view, though, is how much green is visible in all directions. The Birmingham Green project was started when I was an elementary school student. Now, the tree-lined streetscape of 20th Street provides a shaded promenade to Linn Park and the museums, stadium, and sports and entertainment spaces beyond the City Walk.

After spending time on the roof, it was time to grab dinner and catch a movie.

Art for Everybody, directed by Miranda Yousef; Alabama Theatre

I debated whether to catch the Opening Night film. In the early years of Sidewalk, more challenging films were offered on Opening Night. That seemed to end and go in the other direction after a John Sayles film was the opener and audiences were not pleased. The nadir was an opening night movie about a famous cat on social media. Since then, opening night selections have been more middle-of-the-road, trying to appeal to a wide audience. We all gather for Opening Night and split into our various tribes of film tastes on Saturday and Sunday.

Art for Everybody explores the surprisingly complex rise and spectacular fall of Thomas Kinkade, the “Painter of Light,” whose work was retailed in shopping malls throughout the country. In exploring Kinkade and his following, the film also touches on the national divide in the country. After Kinkade’s death from an overdose of alcohol and drugs, his daughters discover a vault of personal artworks that are completely different from the works he’s known for and cause some art critics to have second thoughts about Kinkade as an artist.

Art for Everybody is a surprise, but the most valuable part of the screening for me was the Q&A afterwards. Listening to director Miranda Yousef during the Q&A, I started to recall the days when I took great pleasure in being a striving creative artist. Yousef’s career in film, primarily as a film editor, has finally led to her directing a surprising and moving work of documentary art about art.

Leaving the Alabama, I was in the middle of the popular Sidewalk Opening Night Party in the street on 3rd Avenue N. Looked like fun, but I headed the two blocks to my hotel and bed.

SATURDAY

Passages, directed by Ira Sachs; ASFA Dorothy Jemison Day Theatre

I was excited to see the latest film by Ira Sachs so soon after reading competing reviews by Richard Brody and Anthony Lane, two film critics for The New Yorker whom I like very much and often agree with. Their reviews of Passages, however, run counter to each other and I was anxious to see with whom I agreed.

Passages presents a disturbing love triangle when Tomas (Franz Rogowski), who is married to Martin (Ben Whishaw), strikes up an obsessive affair with Agathe (Adele Exarchopoulos). The manic Tomas, a demanding film director, is one of the least appealing, most annoying, protagonists I can think of. He is full of cringe-worthy moments and pronouncements, and I wondered why anyone would be willing to put up with him. I didn’t like putting up with him for ninety minutes and was happy it was screened in the morning so I could forget it quickly.

Lane writes, “It’s the unhappiest film I’ve watched in a long while, steeped in Freudian pessimism …” Brody exults “the realm of emotional and sexual freedom that ‘Passages’ explores … is the crucible of imagination, the hallmark of progressive politics, and the essence of art.”

Alrighty then. I am Team Lane on this one.

Free Time, directed by Ryan Martin Brown; Sidewalk Cinema

Free Time is a comedy about a Millennial, about to turn 30. Drew (Colin Burgess) abruptly quits his desk job to find freedom and happiness. His ennui at work turns into ennui on the streets and spurs a movement of Millennials who, lemming-like, follow Drew’s dead-end lead. The amusingly frustrating performance by Burgess carries the movie. It is a refreshing document of a generational moment.

Parachute, directed by Brittany Snow; Lyric Theatre

Actor Brittany Snow adds “writer/director” to her resume with her debut directing effort, Parachute, written with Becca Gleason. Parachute is a look at Gen Z angst, addiction, and dependency that is, surprisingly, not a total buzzkill. In fact, the angsty are also rather charming. Riley (Courtney Eaton), fresh out of rehab for eating, body image, and relationship disorders, meets Ethan (Thomas Mann), a really nice guy with gradually revealed “issues” of his own. From serious subject matter, Snow applies a light touch that treats a serious subject seriously but is never gloomy in the process.

Leaving Parachute, I realized that, without planning to, I chose three narrative features in a row with really frustrating protagonists. Riley makes a series of bad choices and seems to dig herself further into a hole of her own making while a group of steadfast friends try to support her. We root for Ethan to win her over and become more than her “good friend.”

Moonage Daydream (2022), directed by Brett Morgen; Sidewalk Cinema

No frustrating protagonist here. Moonage Daydream, a trippy documentary about David Bowie, was released last year and had a run at Sidewalk Cinema in 2022. Sidewalk brought it back for the film festival audience that packed the house. Sidewalk co-founder and audience favorite Alan Hunter provided some pre-screening comments, including a reminder that he appears in Bowie’s 1990 “Fashion” video, and the tidbit that he and Bowie’s wife, Iman, took an acting class together.

Bowie, always a fascinating figure, moves majestically through Moonage Daydream in all of his personae – from elegant to extreme. Vintage video, performances, interviews, and plentiful music provide a kinetic audio feast, a celebration of a singular, irreplaceable artist.

Moonage Daydream seemed to be the proper way to end a full film-viewing day. Before turning in, I decided to walk a few blocks to a place that my writer friend John T. Edge told me to visit as soon as possible. House of Found Objects is Faizel Valli’s latest venture in downtown following the closure of his very popular Atomic Bar and Lounge. The place is an art installation with a bar. On a crowded night, it was hard to take it all in. John T. Edge wrote a great description for Garden and Gun: John T. Edge Toasts a Birmingham Bar Where Patrons Are the Stars – Garden & Gun (gardenandgun.com)

SUNDAY

I have always loved the quiet of downtown Birmingham on a Sunday morning. It has become a tradition for me for seek out meditative documentaries for my Sunday Sidewalk experience. After checking out of the hotel, I drove around for a while. People were walking dogs, taking morning runs, riding bikes. Birmingham streets would have been deserted not that long ago, before the downtown area became a residential as well as business hub. I like the neighborhood feel of today.

45365 (2009), directed by Bill Ross IV & Turner Ross; Birmingham Museum of Art

The fact that I know the zip code of Sidney, Ohio, tells how big an impression the Ross Brothers’ 2009 documentary about their home town made on me. In honor of the 25th Sidewalk, programmers added screenings of some films that have been shown over the past two-and-a-half decades. 45365 certainly merits a repeat viewing.

45365 chronicles life in a small American city. There is no narration – just an all-seeing camera following the people who live there. There is an occasional visit to the control booth of a local deejay. Most of the characters are only seen for a moment or two, but we feel like we know, have known, them.

I feel comfortable declaring that 45365 is one of my favorite movies of the 21st Century so far. Check out the trailer: 45365 Trailer – YouTube

King Coal directed by Elaine McMillion Sheldon; Sidewalk Cinema

After reading reviews and watching the trailer for King Coal, the documentary by Elaine McMillion Sheldon, I knew it would be the perfect documentary to pair with 45365. Sheldon, who is from West Virginia, explores the coal industry in Appalachia, the mythology and pride that surround the culture, and the hopes for a future beyond coal. King Coal, filmed in parts of several states, deals with the complexity of an industry that has sustained its communities while it also has exploited and destroyed them. At one point, Sheldon says, “I remember learning that if I said anything bad about the King, I was betraying my loved ones.” Watching the film, and remembering a time when Birmingham was dominated and sustained by iron and steel and heavy industry, I understand the conundrum Sheldon addresses in her lyrical and poignant celebration of her home, its past, and its uncertain future. Here’s a preview:

King Coal (2023) | Official Trailer | Full HD – YouTube

There was plenty more to see, but I decided that King Coal was a fitting denouement to a good weekend of viewing. Plus, walking from venue to venue in 96-degree temperatures helped me lose five pounds (another reason to attend this festival).

Those who love movies owe it to themselves to check out future Sidewalks. Years ago, Time listed Sidewalk as one of the “Top 10 Festivals for the Rest of Us.” MovieMaker has cited it many times, including as one of “The 25 Coolest Film Festivals in the World” and “20 Great Film Festivals for First Time Moviemakers.”

No matter what’s going on in my world, I’m always happy I showed up at Sidewalk.

Happy Sidewalk!

I Want My Sidewalk 2019

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 Birmingham’s Sidewalk Film Festival (www.sidewalkfest.com) is always the final full weekend in August before college football season commences. Although the festival events begin several days before the weekend main event, Sidewalk, for me, always begins on Friday evening and ends late on Sunday night. During that time, there are several hundred screenings of every variety of shorts, documentaries, animation, and feature-length moving pictures at venues throughout the northside of downtown.

2019 marked the 21st edition of Sidewalk. In the early years, I would pride myself on how many screenings I could cram into a 48-hour period. Nowadays, I study the schedule carefully, curate a schedule that fits my time, and allow myself time to breathe. At Sidewalk, it’s impossible to see everything one might want to see; that’s part of the charm and mystique.

Sidewalk’s most exciting new addition to downtown Birmingham this year is the Sidewalk Cinema and Film Center, a two-theatre complex in the basement level of the Pizitz building that will screen indie films 365 days a year. With the two screens at the Pizitz, the Alabama, the Lyric, the Carver, Red Mountain Theatre’s cabaret space, and the McWane Center’s IMAX, Birmingham’s downtown “theatre district” is once again living up to its name.

Friday, August 23

Traditionally, my Sidewalk weekend begins with lunch at Chef Frank Stitt’s Chez Fonfon. My weekend pass is waiting at the Central Ticket Office at the Pizitz, around the block from the Alabama, Sidewalk’s most storied venue (www.alabamatheatre.com).

In the early days of Sidewalk, the Opening Night presentation was often a cutting-edge film which might open to mixed response. I remember the grumbling after John Sayles’s Silver City opened Sidewalk in 2004. It wasn’t Sayles’s best, but I was happy to catch a new Sayles movie on a big screen in Birmingham.

Since those days, the Opening Night film is most often a goofy documentary geared to a broad general audience. Although I enjoy being there for the opening festivities, I am sometimes likely to leave when the feature starts. A few years ago, when they opened with a documentary about some cat that was a sensation on the internet, I didn’t even bother to attend opening night.

This year, the opening feature is I Want My MTV. The 2019 documentary, directed by Tyler Measom and Patrick Waldrop, premiered in May at the Tribeca Film Festival. I Want My MTV is both informative and a great feel-good way to open Sidewalk 21. Alan Hunter, one of the original MTV veejays interviewed in the doc, is a Birmingham native, a founder of Sidewalk, and, for many years, was the very popular opening night emcee for the festival.

A short documentary, “Lost Weekend,” is screened prior to the feature. “Lost Weekend,” by Birmingham filmmakers Bradford Thomason and Brett Whitcomb, chronicles the climaxes and misadventures of a young Pennsylvania man who wins a 1980s MTV contest in which the prize is a weekend for two to hang out in Detroit with Van Halen’s concert tour. Everything you expect to happen in that scenario, happens.

Alan Hunter is on hand to help introduce the feature film, which focuses on the genesis and early years of what was then a music video network that became a major force of 1980s popular culture.

As the Opening Night movie ends, the sell-out Alabama Theatre audience flows onto 3rd Avenue North in front of the theatre for the opening night street party. I have no doubt a good time will be had by all, but I walk through the festivities and straight to my room at the Tutwiler Hotel.

Saturday, August 24

When I arrive back at the Alabama on a bright and sunny Saturday morning, I don’t quickly comprehend why there are “cigarette girls” in the theatre lobby offering packs of candy cigarettes to patrons. However, I am there to attend a screening of the new documentary, Mike Wallace Is Here, directed by Avi Belkin, and am about to watch an hour and a half of on-screen smoking from a time when on-screen cigarette smoking was common, even for reporters on the job.

The life of Wallace, the legendary investigative news man who is best remembered for his decades on “60 Minutes,” is examined in detail in a fascinating no-holds-barred way that is reminiscent of the interviewing style of Wallace himself. His detailed examination into every story he covers is as incisive and prickly with Bette Davis and Barbra Streisand as it is with the Ayatollah Khomeini and John Ehrlichman.

After the screening, I grab a quick bite at the Pizitz Food Hall and head to the Alabama School of Fine Arts for a block of Alabama- and politically-themed documentary shorts. My favorite is Carroll Moore’s “Dawoud Bey: The Birmingham Project,” an examination of Bey’s photography mission to capture images of children the same age as the “four little girls” of the Birmingham church bombing were when they were murdered in 1963. He also includes homage to the two young boys who were murdered later in the day during the bombing’s aftermath.

“Call Me,” directed by Megan Friend and Norris Davis, is a most entertaining exploration of the rhymes and reasons behind attorney Alexander Shunnarah’s ubiquitous billboards that cover the state of Alabama. The 9-minute short includes the full 48-second Alexander Shunnarah / Jurassic Park parody by Kelly Coberly.

Other documentaries in the block explore political activism to get out the vote (“Woke Vote”); emergency responders in Tuscaloosa (“Druid City Strong”); photographic documentation of abandoned buildings in Birmingham (“Walls of Jericho”); diversity and inclusion in a rural Alabama climbing expedition (“The People of Climbing”); student debt (“A Generation Drowning”); and a 70-year-old murder case that went unpunished (“Murder in Mobile”).

From the School of Fine Arts, it’s a short walk to Birmingham Museum of Art for Vita and Virginia (2018), a British film directed by Chanya Button. This is another biographical exploration of the tortured romance of Virginia Woolf (Elizabeth Debicki) and Vita Sackville-West (Gemma Arterton). This latest one is adapted from the 1992 play of the same name by actor/playwright Eileen Atkins.

Vita and Virginia lingers over the cat and mouse game that leads up to the affair of Woolf and Sackville-West in the artistic communities of 1920s England – particularly the Bloomsbury group. The story is told realistically, but with the occasional inclusion of tangled imagery that seeks to capture Virginia Woolf’s mental instability and emotional confusion. There is a stilted, stagey formality to the dialogue at times, but one adjusts to the play’s pace and structure. Atkins based much of her play on the letters of the two title characters; there are some fine moments when the camera rests on a face speaking directly into the camera, delivering emotional and occasionally laughably over-the-top declarations.

Despite noble and occasionally brave performances, Debecki and Arterton seem miscast to me.

Among the supporting actors, Peter Ferdinando delivers an understated, complex, and compassionate performance as Leonard Woolf and Isabella Rossellini has a fine turn as Vita’s snarky mother, Baroness Sackville.

By the time Vita and Virginia is over, a passing thunderstorm drenches downtown and Museum maintenance staff is scrambling to deal with puddles and leaks outside the main entrance as I make haste to get back to the Tutwiler to change and join a friend for dinner.

Sunday, August 25

I will not go to church today, but I waken to the pealing of church bells throughout the city – not an unpleasant way to meet the day. And I plan to attend something equally spiritual and, to my tastes, more inspirational.

A few months ago, when I first heard the buzz about the new Aretha Franklin documentary, Amazing Grace (1972/2018), I remember thinking I hope that’s scheduled to play Sidewalk this year.

It was.

In 1972, director Sydney Pollack and his crew filmed the two-night recording session of what would be Aretha Franklin’s best-selling live gospel album, Amazing Grace. The recording took place in the sanctuary of the New Temple Missionary Baptist Church in Los Angeles. Franklin was supported by legendary gospel singer James Cleveland, the Southern California Community Choir, and an all-star group of musicians. Mick Jagger and Charlie Watts are spotted in the audience.

For some reason, during Pollack’s recording of the two services, the audio and video were not synched, the footage was deemed unusable, and eventually the film was presumed lost.

Fast forward to the early 2000s: the “unusable footage” is rediscovered, producer Alan Elliott supervises a team of digital experts in the rehabilitation of the “lost” footage, and the resulting movie is a revelation. During her lifetime, Franklin kept suing to halt screenings of the reconstructed movie. After her death, the family consented to the release and it is finally being shared with audiences world-wide.

No real effort was made to mold the concert into something “cinematic.” Much of the footage is raw and immediate, with awkward camera movement, sloppy zooms, finding focus – all still there for the world to see.

So is raw emotion – James Cleveland breaking down in sobs at one point; the choir clearly overcome by the event they are witnessing and being a part of; Rev. C.L. Franklin – Aretha’s father – jumping up to wipe the sweat from her face and neck as she plays the piano. His handkerchief completely covers her face at one point just before she starts to sing. The audience, lost in emotion and awe, becomes a part of the power of the film and Pollack’s camera crew scrambles to capture it all.

You must see it.

As the Sidewalk audience gathers outside the Lyric Theatre for the screening, ladies distribute church fans on the sidewalk. When the audience is seated in the theatre, Birmingham-based gospel singer Belinda George Peoples emerges from the wings to sing “Amazing Grace” a capella. By the end of Peoples’s performance, the audience is singing along.

The event feels more like a church service than a movie screening as the audience claps and sways with Aretha’s powerful sound on songs like “What a Friend,” “Wholy Holy,” “God Will Take Care of You,” and the title song. There’s a very effective medley of the gospel standard “Precious Lord (Take My Hand)” with Carole King’s “You’ve Got a Friend.”

But the song that gets to me most is Franklin at the piano playing and singing “Never Grow Old,” with the camera closing in tight. It moves me to see a young Aretha Franklin (she was 29 when the album was made) plaintively repeating the phrase “never grow old” and its contemplation of eternity. Mick Jagger is there, also 29-years-old at the time, and, in the Lyric, I am sitting a few seats down from a friend I knew in college in the ‘70s.

When our work here is done and the life crown is won

And our troubles and trials are over

All our sorrow will end, and our voices will blend

With the loved ones who’ve gone on before

Never grow old, never grow old

In a land where we’ll never grow old

I leave the theatre and drive across town to have lunch with Mother. I have a list of movies I plan to see later on Sunday afternoon, but – blessedly assured that I have gotten what I came for – I actually feel a little sanctified as I hit the road for home.

Archival photo of Alabama Theatre, Birmingham; 1934