Dingo

March 30, 2022

All my fellow musicians were inspired to learn an instrument after seeing someone else play somewhere. And they all had dreams. Whether it was just to be good enough to play for their family and friends, or maybe at the local bars in town or to hit the big time while performing in concert halls and stadiums. Achieving this dream takes years of practice and experience, and more often than not, the reality of making a career in music becomes elusive. But this doesn’t keep folks from trying, and such is the goal of the protagonist in the 31-year-old Australian film called Dingo.

The story begins in 1969, in the fictitious town of Poona Flat in the outback of Western Australia. Three young kids are playing in the unpaved street when a private 747 plane carrying a band on tour has to make an emergency landing at the town’s tiny airstrip. It’s such a momentous event that the entire town jumps into jeeps and trucks and dashes out to see what is going on. The plane had some mechanical issues, and while it is being repaired the progressive jazz band sets up on the tarmac and plays some songs for the bewildered populace. Young John “Dingo” Anderson was so mesmerized that then and there he decided that he wants to learn how to play the trumpet like band leader Billy Cross. After telling Billy, “That was the best music I ever heard,” Billy says, “If you ever come to Paris, look me up.”

Fast forward twenty years later, where the grown lad leads his own band called Dingo and the Dusters that plays at the local town hall on weekends. During the day he does handy work and tries to trap dingos that are attacking sheep. He’s got a wife and two young girls, and they live in a funky house out in the sticks. But he’s never forgotten the jazz players he saw two decades before, so he secretly stashes money away, and one day, while on his way to a job to repair fences, he changes his mind at a crossroads and flies to Paris instead where, in less than 24 hours he is staying at his idol’s house and they go out to a jazz club where Billy arranges for Dingo to sit in with a smoking band where, of course, Dingo blows everyone away, before he then flies back down under without his family knowing where he’s been.

Yes, the premise is farfetched, as the story is basically a modern day fairy tale with so many holes in the plot that our handy-man hero could make a lot of money just patching them up. But the characters are endearing, the role of Billy Cross was played by jazz icon Miles Davis, and the soundtrack itself – by Davis and legendary French composer Michel Legrand – is worth the price of admission.

The film was originally released in 1991 to little acclaim, and it will have a limited theatrical re-release before becoming available on digital video in April. It plays out more like a fantasy TV movie, but fans of Miles Davis will love seeing and hearing him play on the silver screen for his last time in Dingo. 

Blues on Beale

February 16, 2022

It may come as a surprise to listeners that some of us here at this show have to work elsewhere to support our movie reviewing habit. While I have been on the staff for 30+ years now, for the past 28 I’ve been singing the workingman blues on my day job in a high-rise office building on Beale Street in downtown San Francisco. So, when I first heard of new film called Blues on Beale, I was right on it, thinking that someone made a documentary about me! However, much to my surprise and satisfaction, while both streets are named after the same guy, this film is about another Beale Street, the one in Memphis, Tennessee.

While Nashville is known in some quarters as “Music City, USA,” Memphis, 200 miles to the west, has the title “Home of the Blues.” There are at least 20 nightclubs in and around Beale Street, and once a year The Blues Foundation hosts the International Blues Challenge, and the subject of this film is the event that took place in January of 2020, just before COVID shut down the clubs. There was no festival last year, and the next one will take place this coming May. The Challenge is a worldwide search for blues bands and solo/duo acts that are ready for the national stage but haven’t yet had their big break. Performers come from all over the world. Two years ago, there were 232 entries from 17 countries, and what the makers of this documentary did was to pick ten acts to follow during the quarterfinals. There are shows and interviews with the chosen bands as well as clips with former winners, club owners, record labels, writers, and more. But man, there was an abundance of artistry on the stages, and having been a talent judge for a different genre of music, I’m sure glad that I did not have to pick any of the winners here.

If you’re a fan of the blues and want to get a behind the scenes look at some fabulous upcoming acts before everyone else does, then you’re going to love watching and bopping to Blues on Beale. Make sure that you watch the credits at the end, as there is an all-star jam interspersed with are some hilarious outtakes.

The Tender Bar

January 19, 2022

It’s an age-old lament: “The book was much better than the movie!” Yet, Americans tend to watch way more movies than read books, because the former can be completed in an hour or two and at much less the cost, while the latter can sometimes take days to finish. Here’s a caveat that I am going to proffer right now: If you are going to watch a film after reading a book, wait a while, instead of doing what I did, which was to cue up Amazon Prime literally one minute after having read the memoir The Tender Bar.

“Coming of age” stories are grist for the mill in Hollywood, and people never seem to tire of them. Yet, rare is the time that the kid in these tales spends most of his youth in a bar. In this case, it’s Pulitzer Prize-winning author JR Moehringer who, while living in his grandparent’s house on Long Island with his single mom in the 1980s, got to hang a lot with his Uncle Charlie – played, ironically, by Ben Affleck, who has had well-documented issues with alcohol – and who was the main bartender at a nearby joint named Publicans in the town of Manhasset. JR’s absentee father was a ne'er-do-well deejay of some renown that the kid mostly got to know from hearing his deadbeat dad’s voice on the radio. His crazy grandfather – and who better to play such a part than Christopher Lloyd? – was hardly a good role model for the young JR either. So, it was left to Uncle Charlie and his denizen friends at the local gin mill to show the kid the ways of the world, and JR, who, at a young age, aspired to be a writer, was presented with a lot of material to write about after making his way, against all odds, through Yale and years of imbibing.

The Tender Bar was directed by George Clooney, and while there were countless changes made to the story from the book – including the ending! – in the end, it really doesn’t matter, as the gist of the story is still there, and as a result, Clooney and Affleck may be in the running for Oscar nominations in a couple of weeks. The teenage JR is ably played by Tye Sheridan, but one of real stars of this film is 10-year-old Daniel Ranieri, who plays the young JR. The kid, who had never acted before, got cast after Clooney saw him on the Jimmy Kimmel Show. Do a Google search for this, and you will not be disappointed.

If you’re looking for a wonderful new film that has no cartoon-like action heroes, explosions, car chases, serial killers or Adam Sandler in it, sidle on up to The Tender Bar. And while I highly recommend reading the book, just don’t do it right before watching the film, because you’ll get a terrible case of the DTs with all the changes.

Oh, and as for this Moehringer guy? If you’ve never heard of him before, you will soon, because he’s also been hired to write Prince Harry’s coming-of-age bio.

30 Years As a Reviewer/Swiss Family Robinson

December 15, 2021

December 11th marked my 30-year-anniversary on the show Movie Magazine International. Yeah, I know. Three decades. That’s a long time for anything. The average marriage in the US lasts eight years. Athletes are lucky to log 20 years in their sport. Few in Generation X will only ever work for just one company. Even longtime network news anchor Brian Williams left NBC last week just shy of 28 years. And while I feel fortunate to have been part of this show for this long, producer Monica Sullivan, co-producer Steve Rubenstein, webmaster Randy Parker, and reviewer Mad Professor Mike Marano have been here longer than I have. I’m proud to be part of this dedicated staff, and I look forward to many more years to come.

How did this all begin? Just by happenstance. In 1991 an acquaintance, who had been doing reviews for the show, had a last-minute conflict, so she called me in a panic to see if I could cover a forgettable film called The Last Boy Scout for her. I said, “I don’t know anything about writing movie reviews!” She replied, “You know how to write, you love films, you have an opinion, and you don’t have anything going on in your life.” Well, she was correct about the latter three. I’m still trying to figure out the first quip. 30 years later, I guess I must be doing something right.

Since the 11th was a cause for celebration, I tried to come up with a special way to commemorate the date, so what I did was I went and re-watched the first film I ever saw, and this took me back 60 years, when, as a wide-eyed seven-year-old, I saw the Disney pic Swiss Family Robinson at the Anthony Wayne Theatre in the town of Wayne, Pennsylvania. And rather than review it just as a jaded adult six decades later, my goal was to watch and imagine seeing it through the eyes of that impressionable red-headed kid from back in the day. By doing such, I was not disappointed.

The story is based on an 1812 novel that centers on a Swiss family of five that left Switzerland to escape the Napoleonic Wars and was headed for a new life in New Guinea. Their ship was attacked by pirates, the crew abandoned them, and in a storm, they end up – 150 years before Gilligan and the gang – on an uncharted and deserted isle, where in short order Father (he is never called anything but here) and his three sons – Fritz, Ernst, and Francis – use the remains from the shipwreck to build a magnificent tree house for them to live in while Mother provides for their daily well-being. It’s an action/adventure story that includes an array of jungle animals, pirates, danger, camaraderie, and even the introduction of a love triangle when a wayward girl becomes an extended part of the family. And the wrestling scene where Fritz is attacked by a giant anaconda? I had never forgotten this. The cast is first rate, with acclaimed actor John Mills as Father (he was also the real-life father of renowned Disney actor Hayley Mills), Dorothy McGuire as the always-perfectly-groomed-in-the-jungle Mother, James (Danno from Hawaii Five-O) MacArthur as the oldest boy Fritz, and Disney regulars Tommy Kirk and Kevin Corcoran as the other two boys. From a seven-year-old’s point of view, this is a wonderful film for the whole family. If you can get your hands on the two-disc version, it’s well worth it as the bonus material is some of the best that I have ever seen.

But when viewed by a caustic and crusty critic? There are many issues. The family was locked below deck on the crashing ship by the wayward crew? How did they keep their clothes clean? What did they eat for food? How did the guys stay clean-shaven? If they were Swiss, why did Father speak with a British accent while the rest of the family sounded American? The last time I checked Robinson is an English, and not a Swiss, name. How did they get a pipe organ from the wrecked ship up into the tree house? What did the two dogs eat for food? And how did the young girl Bertie fit perfectly into Mother’s clothes while she was a good two inches shorter? If this film were made today animal rights activists would howl at the treatment of the animals, and there’s no way that the pirates would have been portrayed as stereotypical-for-that-era cutthroat Asians.

But such is one of the many marvels and mysteries of movies. They can be viewed differently depending on the era when they were made and by the age of the viewer. While I loved Swiss Family Robinson 60 years ago, after 30 years as a critic I’d have many questions.

All in all, I’ve had a wonderful time here on this show, I’ve covered about 150 films, and I’m not going anywhere. And, with any luck, I’ll still be here another 30 years from now.

Okay, probably not. But if movies keep getting made, and the good folks here are willing to let me offer up the occasional film review, I will continue and contentedly be signing off with the words “and for Movie Magazine, I’m Larry Carlin…”

tick, tick…BOOM!

December 8, 2021

It may seem kind of odd for me, as a musician, to admit that I am not a fan of musicals. Anything Goes, A Chorus Line, My Fair Lady? Even Hamilton? Nope. Zero interest. So, when I heard about a new biopic/musical about composer Jonathan Larson, who gave us the popular production Rent – which ran for 12 years on Broadway 25 years ago – I was ready to hit the snooze button. But then on November 19th I got an email from my friends at Netflix that said, “Larry, we just added a movie you might like,” and when I saw the unusual title, I remembered that I had also seen the West Wing actor Bradley Whitford recently on a talk show saying that he was going to be playing Stephen Sondheim in a new film, so curiosity got the best of me, and the next thing I knew I was cueing up tick, tick…BOOM! on the TV. And bam! I was hooked!

The story begins with the then 29-year-old Larson sitting at a piano in a theatre in 1990, describing the torture he was going through while trying to complete his first musical in just eight days before his impending 30th birthday. Since Sondheim had his first major production on Broadway at age 27, and Lennon/McCartney had already written their last song together by the milestone date, Larson feared that if he didn’t complete his dystopian musical Superbia by age 30 that he’d be done as a musical writer and would forever more be serving breakfasts at the counter at the local Moondance diner, where he worked to pay for his musical habit. The rest of the film shows him, his girlfriend, and others singing and dancing their way through the next eight days of agony with rehearsals, rewrites, rejections, and much more, including a couple of interactions with the renowned Sondheim. But this is all that I will say about the story. You will have to watch the film to find out what happens. Spoiler alert: If you don’t know anything about Larson, do not look at his bio until after you have seen the movie.

Speaking of Hamilton, this pic was directed by the amazingly talented Lin-Manuel Miranda in his directorial debut. Singing, dancing, acting, writing, and now film making? If this production is any indication of things to come, the 41-year-old Miranda has a bright future in Hollywood. But the real star here is Andrew Garfield – who played Spider Man twice and was also in the Social Network – as the driven and slightly maniacal Larson, and Garfield should garner a Best Actor nomination for performance. He also took singing lessons for a year so that he could play this part. The supporting cast is also fabulous, most notably Alexandra Shipp as Susan, Larson’s dancer and frustrated girlfriend. And while Whitford’s part is very small, he adds gravitas to his role as the now late/great Sondheim, who died on November 26th. Small and hilarious sidebar: When Sondheim was told that he was going to be portrayed by Whitford, his caustic reply was, “Never heard of him.” And, late in the film, that is the real Sondheim on the phone answering machine.

‘Tis the season to be jolly, so instead of wasting time watching holiday twaddle and blockbuster busts, head on over to Netflix to see the merry, mellifluous, and melodious tick, tick…BOOM!

Without Getting Killed or Caught

September 15, 2021

Love it, leave it, or hate it, the state of Texas has been in the news quite a bit lately. In my lifetime it’s given us a couple of presidents, taken one away, produced successful sports teams, hosted space ships to the moon, supplied the country with a lot of oil, etc. But to me, one of its best exports has been their singers and songwriters, from Bob Wills, Willie Nelson, and Waylon Jennings to Lyle Lovett, Nanci Griffith and Steve Earle. All either are, or were, commercially successful, but there is one more guy to add to this list that many people may not be familiar with, and he is the subject of a wonderful new documentary titled Without Getting Killed or Caught.

Born in 1941 in the West Texas town of Monahans, Guy Clark started playing guitar at an early age, and was part of the ‘60s folk scene in Houston for many years, where he met and befriended another likeminded Texan named Townes Van Zandt, and they remained compadres for the next 30 years. In 1970 Guy hooked up with artist Susanna Talley, and the threesome soon moved to Los Angeles for a while – where Guy penned his signature song, “L.A. Freeway” (the title of this film is a line in the chorus) before heading to Nashville in 1971, where he and Susanna married a year later and lived for the rest of their lives. The triad had an unusual relationship – Susanna always said that Townes was her “soul mate” – while all three of them had hit songs recorded by others, which enabled them to live comfortably as artists and musicians. Guy recorded about two dozen albums but it wasn’t until his later years that he was finally recognized by his peers in 2005 by winning the Americana Music Association’s Lifetime Achievement Award for songwriting, and then in 2013 he won a Grammy for Best Folk Album titled “My Favorite Picture of You.” As Emmylou Harris said at the Americana event, “In a town of writers, he really is our poet laureate.” Clark died in May of 2016 after a long battle with lymphoma.

Based on the diaries of Susanna Clark and Tamara Saviano’s 2016 superb book Without Getting Killed or Caught: The Life and Music of Guy Clark, this is one of the finer music documentaries that I have ever seen. Not only are there excellent photos and video footage from over the decades, Tamara also had the luxury of having recorded interviews with Guy and Susanna, so the latter two essentially narrate their own documentary after they’ve been gone for many years. In a stroke of casting genius, the filmmakers got actress Sissy Spacek to read some of Susanna’s words, and she sounds exactly like her. Plus, there is some great artwork and animation by Mel Chin, a friend of all three of the main characters. Included in the documentary are insightful interviews with musicians Rodney Crowell, Steve Earle, Verlon Thompson, Vince Gill and multimedia artist Terry Allen, who created the crow sculpture at the end of the film that contains ashes from his late songwriter friend. And the song sung by Rodney Crowell while the credits are rolling is a co-write with Guy titled “Caw Caw Blues.”

Similar to Clark’s concert touring schedule, the film is now traveling the country and being shown in art houses in various cities, and for folks in the San Francisco area you can see Without Getting Killed or Caught at the Balboa Theatre from September 17th-23rd, with an added bonus of an appearance by the filmmakers after the 7:30 p.m. show on Saturday the 18th. You can safely attend without catching – or being killed – by COVID, as everyone must present proof of vaccination for all the shows.

Harry Chapin: When in Doubt, Do Something

April 21, 2021

Musicians and artists spend their careers trying to be as successful and creative as possible, hoping to become stars or, at the least, be the best at what they do in order to remain relevant and earn a living. Some use their fame to create spinoff ventures in order to further enrich themselves, and others use their notoriety to dabble in politics. But then there are the few that use their eminence to help others in worthy causes, and one of the musical heroes of our time was the late, great storyteller and singer/songwriter Harry Chapin, whose personal credo is also the title of a new documentary called When in Doubt, Do Something.

It was almost 50 years ago, in 1972, when Chapin took the music world by storm with his first big hit – a tune titled “Taxi” – that, at 6:44, was easily twice as long as the normal AM radio song. Two years later his classic “Cat’s in the Cradle” – that was co-written with his wife Sandy – shot to number one on the charts and made Harry a veritable star. But he wasn’t content with just playing concerts and making money. At the height of his career, he and his friend – radio host Bill Ayres – began lobbying long and hard to combat world hunger, something that became a cause célèbre for both of these men. About half of Harry’s concerts turned into benefits. In the late ‘70s he was one of the most socially active performers in America. But Harry and Bill felt that just doing concerts wasn’t enough, so they created the Why Hunger organization and also went before Congress to help establish the Presidential Commission on World Hunger. The tireless, handsome and charismatic Chapin was a tour de force, who, according to his musician/brother Tom, “wanted to change the world.”

However, the world was changed tragically 40 years ago this July 16th, when Harry, at the way too young age of 38, was killed in a fiery collision with a tractor trailer on his way to a benefit show in NY City. But his legacy lives on. The fight to end world hunger continues four decades later, and Harry was the inspiration not only for the Long Island Cares Harry Chapin Foodbank, but also major anti-hunger events such as Hands Across America, Live Aid, and USA for Africa.

Writer, producer and director Rick Korn’s documentary about this dedicated and transformative performer is inspirational and very well done. The photos and early film footage of the Chapin family are very endearing, as are all the video clips and interviews from his later years with family and friends. However, tissues will be needed about two-thirds of the way through this film even when you know what lies ahead.

On Harry Chapin’s tombstone are these inscribed words from a song he wrote:

Oh if a man tried

To take his time on Earth

And prove before he died

What one man’s life could be worth

I wonder what would happen to this world

Harry Chapin certainly proved what one person can do to change the world. We can only imagine how much else he would have accomplished if he were still with us today. When in Doubt, Do Something is a movie title – and five words – that should and will inspire everyone.

Zappa

November 25, 2020

I’ve been a small time musician for most of my 66 years, and coming from the world of country and bluegrass, I can honestly say that I’m not very familiar with rock, jazz and classical music. Sure, I knew some names of bands and artists, but until now I knew very little about the subject of a riveting new documentary with the title of just one word – Zappa.

No first name is needed, because just about everyone knows who the subject was. For the young or naive, we’re talking about the legendary late composer/artist/guitarist Frank Zappa, who was a tour de force on the rock scene from the ‘60s until his untimely death at age 52 in 1993, when he lost his battle with prostate cancer. In his teen years he was writing greeting cards and making short films decades before there were Smart phones, while listening to avant garde composer Edgard Varese and Black R&B singers, and leading his first band, a racially mixed ensemble called The Blackouts. In 1965 he formed his most well known band, The Mothers of Invention, and dozens of players were members over the years while the iconic Zappa led the ensembles while putting on theatrical productions on stage with his noncommercial discordant songs. While having just one wife and raising four kids in a suburban setting in Los Angeles, the haughty, hirsute hippie never used drugs during a career where he was constantly creating and experimenting with new sounds and concepts. He was very prolific, having put out 62 albums while alive, and 53 more since his passing, and his one big commercial hit was “Valley Girl,” an accidental tune he wrote in 1982 with his daughter Moon. When he was dropped by Warner Brothers, he started his own record label, Barking Pumpkin Records, something that was unheard of back in the day. He appeared before Congress and fiercely fought against censorship of rock lyrics in 1985, and in 1989 he was such a huge hit in the Czech Republic that he was named Czech Cultural Representative to the US during the Velvet Revolution. Ironically – and something he probably would not have cared about – two years after his death he was inducted into the Rock and Roll of Fame, and in 1997 he was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Grammy Award.

Director Alex Winter had unbridled access to the Zappa archives, and along with endless footage that Frank himself shot, there are countless scenes of him playing on stage along with interviews on TV shows and commentary by his late wife and many of his ex-band mates. He recorded and saved everything that he ever did, and the vault of tapes that he had in his house would fill a small town library.

While this documentary is not for everyone – nor is it going to be drawing huge crowds into theatres during the pandemic – it will also be available On Demand, Amazon Prime, and other online outlets, and Zappa-tistas are going to love every minute of this two-hour-plus retrospective.

Once Were Brothers: Robbie Robertson and The Band

February 26, 2020

Over the decades, there have been groups of musicians that created a musical sound so unique that their impact lives on much longer than the time they played together. The ‘60s/’70s were a special time in rock and roll history, with groups like the Beatles, Led Zeppelin, and the Grateful Dead, whose recordings will be with us forever. One other ensemble of note from back then was the mostly Canadian group called The Band, and they are the subject of the phenomenal new documentary titled Once Were Brothers: Robbie Robertson and The Band.

Lead guitarist and main songwriter Robbie Robertson first started playing bass with drummer Levon Helm as members of Ronnie Hawkins and The Hawks at the age of 16 in 1960. Other players that soon joined the Hawks were Rick Danko, Richard Manuel, and Garth Hudson. In 1964, they all split from Hawkins, called themselves Levon Helm and The Hawks, and in 1965 Bob Dylan hired them to be his backup band when he first went electric. Following this, after moving to Woodstock, NY, in 1968, they put out their first album – “Music From Big Pink” – and renamed themselves The Band, and their career took off. With ensuing classics such as “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down,” “Up on Cripple Creek,” “The Shape I’m In,” and “The Weight,” they became one of the premier quintets on the touring circuit. But like many combos, excessive use of drugs and alcohol began to take its toll, and this, combined with creative differences, led to serious sibling rivalry and a farewell concert in San Francisco in 1976 titled The Last Waltz, a show that was documented on film by Martin Scorcese.

Three of The Band members have since passed from either suicide, overdosing or cancer, and while keyboardist Hudson still performs, Robertson has gone on to have a successful career writing film scores and books. In 2016 he released an autobiographical treatise titled Testimony, which is about his musical career up until The Band’s final days, and this is what the documentary is based on.

This presentation, narrated mostly by Robertson, is a fabulous film that includes priceless footage and interviews, a sensational soundtrack, and commentary by Bruce Springsteen, Eric Clapton, Van Morrison, Taj Mahal, Jan Wenner, and many others.

If you came of age in the ‘60s and ‘70s, if you’ve ever sung along to one of The Band’s songs, if you’ve seen The Last Waltz, or if you are simply a fan of great rock and roll music, then you and your family of friends will love Once Were Brothers.

Rolling Stone: Life and Death of Brian Jones

January 15, 2020

1969 was a momentous year in musical history. The Beatles played their final gig, Woodstock took place in upstate New York, Johnny Cash had a hit with “A Boy Named Sue,” The Who released their single “Pinball Wizard” and rock opera Tommy, and the Altamont Festival happened in Northern California. Perhaps a bit overshadowed by all these events is the fact that the Rolling Stones also fired one of their founding members, who, as fate would have it, mysteriously died a month later, and this is the topic of an intriguing new documentary titled Rolling Stone: Life and Death of Brian Jones.

Unlike his blue-collar-background future band mates Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, Brian Jones came from a wealthy middleclass family, and as a young boy he played clarinet and piano. In his teens he took to jazz and blues, he switched to guitar, and in 1962 he ran an ad in the Jazz News, inviting musicians to audition for a new R&B group, and this is how one of the greatest bands in rock and roll history came to be. Before long they added bassist Bill Wyman and drummer Charlie Watts. In 1963 they had their first big hit with “Satisfaction,” and from there their career took off. But along with success came excesses in the form of alcohol, drugs, arrests, and more, with Jones being the most undisciplined band member. By June of 1969, fed up with Jones’ antics, the band fired him and replaced him with Mick Taylor. A few weeks later Jones was found floating at the bottom of his swimming pool. At this point – about two-thirds of the way through the documentary – this would have been an excellent film about the tragic life of an out-of-control rock star who was the first of many notables (like Hendrix, Joplin, Morrison, Cobain and Winehouse) to die at the early age of 27.

But, as noted above, the film does not end here. As it turns out, Jones died while having a party at his house that included some shady characters. And there were conflicting reports as to how he met his maker, which has led to decades of conspiracy theories. Was his death the result of asthma, as was first reported? Or, as the autopsy states, of a combination of prescription pills and alcohol? If so, how was there fresh (and not chlorinated) water in his lungs? Was there a fight or horseplay in the pool between him and a building contractor who he had fired earlier that day? Why did the police insist on calling it a “drug death” if there was a fight? Did the Stones have him offed so that they wouldn’t have to pay the $100,000 pounds he was owed?

All these questions and more are intricately detailed by writer/director Danny Garcia, who, along with using fabulous footage from the ‘60s, interviews Jones’ friends and acquaintances from back in the day. Rolling Stone: Life and Death of Brian Jones is a fascinating look at the early years of the Stones with the multi-talented Jones that turns into a murder/mystery that, to the dissatisfaction of many, may never be solved.