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The Burning

It speaks to the strength of The Burning’s reputation among cult-film fans that what’s most memorable about the 1981 slasher is not that it was written by the Weinstein brothers, nor that it represents early appearances of the likes of Jason Alexander, Holly Hunter and Fisher Stevens. It’s that its Cropsy is just a damned good villain.
05/24/2013 | Comments 0

Dexter: The Seventh Season

There's no way to discuss the seventh and penultimate season of Showtime's hit Dexter without acknowledging how the previous year ended. Therefore, if you haven't finished the sixth season, stop reading now. You've got work to do.
05/21/2013 | Comments 0

Nightfall

As Simon Lam gets older, he gets better. The veteran actor has appeared in such in seminal HK action films of the 1990s as Once Upon a Time in China (opposite Jet Li) and Bullet in the Head (directed by John Woo); in the aughts, he graced audience and critical favorites Election and Ip Man.
05/20/2013 | Comments 0

Grand Duel

Lee Van Cleef enjoyed a secondary career in Italy cranking out spaghetti Westerns, with little regard to quality. However, 1972’s Grand Duel — aka The Big Showdown — is deserving of its Grand label. No wonder Quentin Tarantino borrowed its sweeping theme song by Luis Bacalov for Kill Bill; you'll recognize it in two notes.
05/20/2013 | Comments 0

The Last Stand

Early in The Last Stand, the small-town sheriff played by Arnold Schwarzenegger says, "It's my day off. Should be a quiet weekend." That's the new way of saying, "I've got one week to retirement," because it signals — with flashing neon and everything — that life is going to royally upend those plans.
05/17/2013 | Comments 0
Home · Articles · Movies · Documentary · Tis Autumn: The Search for...
Documentary

Tis Autumn: The Search for Jackie Paris


None January 17th, 2008

TisAutumn

Reviewer's grade: B

 

Writer/director Raymond De Felitta discovered jazz singer Jackie Paris in the early Nineties, almost 40 years after Paris' small star had set. De Felitta spent the next 10 or so years believing Paris to be dead, until he saw a listing for a Paris performance in The New Yorker. After meeting, De Felitta decided to make this documentary, trying to discover why a man who played with many of jazz's early greats spent his own career in virtual obscurity.

 

As those issues are explored, the film becomes less about Paris and more about how knowing too much about one's idols can shake that idol status. Paris wasn't the nicest guy in the world, and despite his association with Charlie Parker, Charles Mingus and others, he wasn't the greatest singer, either.

 

What we wind up with is the fully human portrait of a man who could have risen to the middle, but didn't and was slowly broken by the disappointment. Fascinating but depressing. Screening Thursday and Friday at the Oklahoma City Museum of Art. NR

 

"”Mike Robertson 

 
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