Weekly Wilson - Blog of Author Connie C. Wilson - Welcome to WeeklyWilson.com, where author/film critic Connie (Corcoran) Wilson avoids totally losing her marbles in semi-retirement by writing about film (see the Chicago Film Festival reviews and SXSW), politics and books----her own books and those of other people. You'll also find her diverging frequently to share humorous (or not-so-humorous) anecdotes and concerns. Try it! You'll like it!

The 59^th Chicago International Film Festival, North America’s longest-running competitive film festival, opened at the iconic Music Box Theater tonight with a showing of “We Grown Now,” directed by Minhal Baig.

The film is a heartfelt story set in Chicago’s Cabrini-Green projects in fall of 1992. Two boys come of age amid change in their community. Malik (Blake Cameron James) and Erik (Gian Knight Ramirez) are 12-year-olds with the projects their playground. S. Epatha Merkerson portrays Malik’s wise and witty grandmother and Malik’s mother, Dolores, is portrayed by Jurnee Smollett (“Lovecraft Country).

All the performances rang true and genuine. The two young men portraying Erik and Malik are particularly affecting, especially at the film’s finale, when the two friends since childhood must say good-bye to one another.

When violence comes to the neighborhood, Malik’s mother Dolores must decide how best to protect her son. She has a chance at a better job in Peoria, but the Cabrini Green Housing Project has always been their home. How will her children—Malik and his sister—cope?

Director Minhal Baig at the Opening of her film “We Grown Now” at the 59th Chicago International Film Festival.

Director Minhal Baig during the Q&A following her film “We Grown Now” at Opening Night of the 59th Chicago International Film Festival.

Written and directed by Minhal Baig (“Hala” )”We Grown Now” is a coming-of-age story based on the real-life experiences of Chicago’s Black community. “We Grown Now” premiered at the 2023 Toronto International Film Festival and was awarded the TIFF Changemaker Award. Sony Pictures Classics is releasing the film.

Baig’s previous feature, “Hala” about a Pakistani-American Muslim teenager uncovering a secret about her family, premiered at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival and was released by Apple.

The film took one and one-half years to cast and the director explained, during the Q&A, how the exact specifications of a real Cabrini Green unit were recreated. She started collecting the memories of former residents of this housing development, which, at one time, housed 15,000 people, in 2018. The research that went into recreating the housing complex was major. In 1995, CHA began tearing down dilapidated mid- and high-rise buildings, with the last demolished in 2011. Originally built to house workers during WWII, the housing development became synonymous with crime and violence. In the film, the death of a 7-year-old boy is a major turning point in Dolores’ realizing that, “I can’t keep you safe, and that hurts me.”

Among other incidents depicted, were police raids at 2 a.m. that treated all residents as though they were potential criminals. The residents were also required to carry I.D. cards to enter or leave their own homes, in an effort to fight the rampant crime and violence. I remember when Mayor Jayne Byrne moved into Cabrini Green as a political stunt.

The music, including original music by Jay Wordley, is one of the bright spots in the film. Coupled with the cinematography by Pat Scola that used corridors and trains effectively, plus the use of the young protagonists to tell the story of the complex, both good and bad, was an important point-of-view. Director Minhal Baig told the audience that, “I felt like this point-of-view—that a place is the people—was not something I had seen. This place meant a lot to the kids and to the community.”

As a tribute to those who called Cabrini Green home for all those years, it is a remarkable achievement. As its director said, “It felt very personal. We recreated the complex and were very faithful to the original. We were trying to give the place a very lived-in real feeling.

The entire production has a very “real” feeling and the collaborative effort with the two young actors and Ms. Smollett (sister of Jesse Smollett) served the film well.

It is worth noting that both of the films that screened at the Music Box tonight were by female directors. And both directors show huge promise.

“Foe” Premieres on Amazon on October 6th: Closing Night of Nashville Film Festival

By Connie Wilson

On October 5, 2023

In Best Paranormal Stories Online to Read | Paranormal Podcast, Movies, Pop Culture, Scary stories, Television

“Foe’s setting is supposed to be the Midwest in 2065. Information projected on the screen tells us that the planet’s climate is growing worse as mankind continues to pollute and ruin the air and water. The government, like Elon Musk, is intent on using space as a safety valve for humans to flee our ruined Earth. Once we completely ruin our home planet, humans will be relocated to suitable locales. The husband of this couple is being recruited to go for a year. (Why?)

A representative of the government, Terrence (Aaron Pierre), comes to the couple’s remote farm home to inform them that the husband, Junior, has been selected to live aboard a government-built space station for a year. (Why?) While he’s gone, an A.I. Replicant will serve as a companion to Junior’s wife Henrietta. Terrence tells the couple that this is a great opportunity for them. Originally, Terrence says the year-long sabbathical will take place in roughly 2 years.

Terrence leaves, but then he returns in his modernistic DeLorean-like car much sooner.

Terrence returns in just one year. He says that he must live with the couple for a period of months in order to help make the Replicant-to-be-made as authentic as possible. Terrence will be conducting confidential interviews with each of the couple and generally butting into their lives. His presence seems unwelcome and, frankly, unnecessary.

The first impulse that Junior has when their doorbell rings at a very late hour is to grab a gun and shoot. Henrietta talks him out of loading the shotgun; no shots are fired at Terrence. [Perhaps they should have been.]

Junior is not thrilled by Terrence’s news. [I couldn’t help but think of the film we watched just prior to this one where a black family in North Carolina fights for 33 years to be able to stay in their home. Two of the principals in “Silver Dollar Road” go to jail for 8 years, just to be able to remain in the only homes they have ever known. “Foe,” which screened immediately after “Silver Dollar Road,” again presents us with a home-owner who does not want to be rousted from his habitat.]

Junior makes the usual accusations about how he doesn’t want some robot living with his wife while he’s gone. He repeats the usual things about his ties to the land and how he doesn’t think that his wife would like living on an artificial construct launched into space. We, the audience, are less sure of this the more we hear of Henrietta’s angst at the sameness of their lives and how she has always felt “that there’s something else out there for me.”

Farming is already nearly impossible in the Midwest of 2065, however; the bleak picture of the future of the planet certainly seems likely after the weather we’ve all experienced this past summer. The dust storm scene reminded me of the Margot Robbie 2019 film “Dreamland.”

THE GOOD

The scenes depicting the ruined planet are all very cinematic. The lonely tone of the farm and fields is impressive, even if it looks nothing like what I would imagine a ruined Midwest would look like in 2065. We could also say that the couple seem oddly stuck in the past, themselves, with a beat-up pick-up truck and a house that could easily be from the fifties. No flat-screen TVs in evidence and a very old-fashioned look and feel to the entire setting. The acting was top-notch, and I would urge you to check it out on Amazon if you have Amazon Prime and fill me in on the gaps in my interpretation, which are many and numerous.

THE BAD

Problems with the interesting landscape do present themselves to the viewer, however. The couple this film focuses on supposedly live in a remote area that is seeing Dust Bowl-like storms and very little rain. If it’s so remote, why is this huge chicken processing plant where Junior works located in the middle nowhere? And who are the customers that Junior’s wife, Henrietta, is seen waiting on in a fancy restaurant?

I’m an Iowa girl. The landscape looked completely foreign. Dying mucky pink fields and crop circles are not part of my Midwestern experience. Even with the passage of thirty-two years, it’s hard to accept that this is supposed to be the Midwestern United States in 2065. (It is, in fact, Victoria in Australia.)

Two Irish actors (Saoirse Ronan as Henrietta and Paul Mescal as Junior) portray the Midwestern couple on the farm, which is suffering the fate of the entire planet. Based on the book Iain Reid wrote and scripted by Reid and Director Garth Davis (“Lion”), this closing night film at the Nashville Film Festival, is an Amazon/MGM project and set to have a premiere on Amazon on October 6th. ( It premiered at the New York Film Festival and will open in the U.S. on October 6th and in the U.K. on October 20th. The reviews have been somewhat negative, but it is definitely worth a look.)

SPOILER ALERT

The film owes much to “Black Mirror” episodes we have seen before, like the 2013 episode Be Right Back, starring Domhnall Gleeson as an AI facsimile for Hayley Atwell’s late boyfriend. There was a similar one on “Black Mirror” in 2011 entitled “Beyond the Sea” that starred Aaron Paul as an astronaut. And, of course, who can forget the Replicants of “Blade Runner?”

The movie opens with Henrietta (Saiorse Ronan) crying in the shower. She is bemoaning the loss of interest in her that she feels she has seen from her husband of 7 years. (“In the beginning, everything seems so new and exciting until time makes it so predictable.”)

IMHO, Henrietta has made a sort of “deal with the devil” to allow the well-made robot early access to her home and marriage. She is tired of the hum-drum existence with which her husband seems content. She wants to play the piano; Junior makes her play in the basement. She wants to travel and leave this dead place. He does not seem to want to leave his familiar homestead. This seems fairly male, in my own experience, so Henrietta’s angst at her husband’s happiness with the status quo is a motive for her behind-the-scenes collaboration with Terrence to allow the husband substitute to enter her life earlier than we originally think as we watch the film. We only learn it in a climactic scene near the end.

The give-away for “which one is the real robot” is the fact that Henrietta obviously knows Terrence when he comes to their door in the middle of the night. My companion said, “Yes, but isn’t that just because she may have signed them up for the spacecraft because of her desire to leave the farm and get away from the sameness of life?”

Possibly, but the plot seems to give the nod to the wife shacking up with the robot from the get-go and the robot being in house throughout 90% of this movie. (This despite the audience thinking that there will come a later time when the robot will be introduced.) Our thinking is that the robot is “in house” from Scene #One. The ability of a replicant to learn to “love” has been pondered before in other films, and it seems to surface again in this one. (Terrence: “Henrietta didn’t know how this would end. They’ll be studying you for years.”)

A later brief absence on Henrietta’s part caused one of us to feel that Henrietta may have gone off on the spacecraft and sent a Replicant back to live with Junior-the-robot. This could be, although I’ll leave that up to you as you watch this on Amazon.

I think I need to read the book in order to completely understand the symbolism of the bugs and other plot points. Why it is called “Foe” is another good question. I can offer some possible reasons for that title, but it doesn’t seem like the strongest fit.

The acting was good. Saiorse Ronan is good in everything and I looked forward to this film. Paul Mescal was a fine counterpart, but not someone whose work I was familiar with;he rose to fame in England in a television series. Some felt the accents were off. I honestly did not notice any break-through Irish accent problems.

We enjoyed the film. Drop a line and we’ll thrash the plot out together.

“Cast

Saoirse Ronan as Henrietta

Paul Mescal as Junior

Aaron Pierre as Terrence

“The Herricanes” @ Nashville Film Festival on October 1, 2023

By Connie Wilson

On October 4, 2023

In Interviews, Movies, Pop Culture, Reviews, Sports

“Do not go where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and make a trail.” (Ralph Waldo Emerson) That quote appears at the beginning of the documentary “The Herricanes,” which played at the Nashville Film Festival on Monday, October 1, 2023.

Olivia Kuan’s Mom played football. Olivia thought it was something any girl could do. Upon learning how unique her mother’s experience was, the young filmmaker decided to document her mother, Basia Haszlakiewicz’s, participation in the female football leagues of the seventies. Basia played for the Houston Herricanes in the NWFL (National Women’s Football League.)

Ms. Kuan’s excellent documentary traces the origins of female contact football. She interviewed many members of several teams; she has done a great job of labeling each interview subject onscreen. Olivia Kuan’s research and editing team did an even better job gathering and assembling the interviews into a coherent whole.The archival production team consisted of Kelsey Carr and researcher Chris Morcam. Still photographs and film footage from the actual games take us back in time.

The documentary embraces the concept”it’s okay for women to be whole people.” Another truth the film underscores is: “It’s important to create a world that welcomes everyone.” Interesting timing. Olivia Hill, the first trans-gender woman to hold office in Nashville, was sworn in this very day as one of 5 council-members at large for the Metro area. (Meanwhile, the state of Tennessee has banned drag shows.)

Title IX

The entire idea of letting women play contact football grew out of the cultural shift of Title IX in 1972. Title IX said that no school could discriminate on the basis of sex in extra-curricular offerings in public schools. Today’s youth don’t remember what a sea change this was.

Olivia’s mother, Basia Haszlakiewicz, played for the Houston Herricanes in the seventies. To the argument women “don’t want to play contact sports” the rebuttal was,”They’ve never been given the opportunity to see if they want to play football.” Today, one of the early supporters of female football runs Gridiron Girls camps.

Be the Revolution

As the film emphasizes, it is not easy to be first.

Four National Women’s Football League teams were founded in 1974. Among the teams participating over the years were the Toledo Troopers, the Dallas Bluebonnets, the Los Angeles Dandelions, the Dallas/Ft. Worth Shamrocks, the Oklahoma City Dolls, the San Antonio Flames, and the Houston Herricanes.

There were initially 14 teams with 3 divisions. The power team was Oklahoma City. In fact, the Oklahoma City Dolls didn’t lose a game until their sixth season. The Dolls put a real beat-down on the Herricanes in their first meetings. Oklahoma averaged 35 points a game and routinely beat the early versions of the Herricanes by scores as lopsided as 40 to 0 and/or 56 to 0.

Director Olivia Kuan and her mom, Basia Haszlakiewicz.

But the Herricanes steadily improved and were competitive near the end of the league’s existence. The players had to buy their own equipment ($88,15 in Olivia’s Mom’s case) and it took $50,000 to keep a team afloat. There were more people on the field than in the stands. This did not help the financial situation of the league. The comment is made that parity for women in any sport is yet to be achieved.

The documentary also made it clear that support for women’s contact football in Europe is much stronger, citing the 2019 World Championship in Leeds, England. Teams thrive in countries like Sweden, Finland, New Zealand, Germany and England.

As for the original NWFL teams, they began to fold in ’78 (Los Angeles Dandelions) and ’79 (Toledo Troopers, Oklahoma City Dolls, Houston Herricanes,) Some (the Dallas/Ft. Worth Shamrocks) had folded earlier. The 1979 Championship game was canceled.

“The Herricanes” was a highly entertaining and engaging trip back in time. It has a great message for the future about inclusivity. One of the best documentaries here at the 52nd Nashville Film Festival.

“Minnie Pearl: Facing the Laughter” at Nashville Film Festival

By Connie Wilson

On October 3, 2023

In Humor and Weird Wilson-isms, Movies, Of Local (Quad Cities') Interest, Pop Culture, Reviews

“Minnie Pearl: Facing the Laughter”, directed by Barbara Hall, an 89-minute 7-year labor of love, screened at the Nashville Film Festival on Monday, October 2nd, 2023. Those singing the praises of Sarah Ophelia Colley Cannon were a Who’s Who of Country Music. Minnie Pearl as a character appeared on the Grand Ole Opry from 1940 to 1991. She was invited to become a member after her very first appearance on the show. She appeared on the television show “Hee Haw” from 1969 to 1991. Her early education at Belmont College and her years spent traveling a rural circuit in 7 rural areas and performing for as little as $50 a week, often with Roy Acuff, were described.

Who was Minnie Pearl? What was her “brand?”

Today’s youth—[much like those who have no idea who Shere Hite of “The Hite Report” was]—-don’t know Minnie Pearl. We learned this from an instructor at Belmont during the Q&A. However, her unique branding of the straw hat with the price tag still attached remains. Some in their tributes to what a nice person she was said they felt she would be better recognized than Carol Burnett or Mary Tyler Moore. They quantified that comment, saying she would be better identified in profile, with the omnipresent price tag still hanging from her hat. Comments that she didn’t want the same kind of fame as those better-known female pioneers should be taken with a grain of salt.

The Minnie Pearl of the Grand Ole Opry was described as “a transformative figure.” Barbi Benton (better known as Hugh Hefner’s long-time girlfriend), who knew Sarah from appearing with her on “Hee Haw” said, “She was a woman who had absolutely no style.” That was meant in a flattering way. Minnie Pearl gave voice to country women who were ordinary looking and considered hillbillies. She was a pioneer for future female comedians, using racy, sexual innuendo and dressing her intelligence and beauty down with a hearty “How-dy!” greeting, while attired in the plain cotton sun dress and straw hat that became her tademarks.

Minnie Pearl as a “Real” Person

What came through most clearly is that Sarah/Minnie was a very nice person. She was inclusive when it was not the norm. She comforted other country performers when they were at their lowest. One, in particular, who choked up when offering his opinions on the woman was Dwight Yoakam. Garth Brooks also seemed to have forged deep bonds with Sarah/Minnie.

Among the more interesting testimonials was that of the recently deceased Paul Reubens (Pee Wee Herman), who pointed out that Sarah and he had alternate personas. The fame of her alternate persona Minnie Pearl sustained her for decades. The filmmakers said that the problem was not getting famous people to sing her praises, but trying to accommodate all of those who wished to participate. She was described as having “befriended everyone” and praised as someone who showed many other people how to be genuine, sweet and amazing. Paul Reubens, in particular, cited Minnie Pearl’s “realness, believability, and genuineness.”

Barbara Hall, Director of “Minnie Pearl: Facing the Laughter” at the Nashville Film Festival.

The real Sarah was said to exhibit elegance, grace, kindness and humility. Her longstanding marriage to a pilot, Henry Ripperton, was covered, with director Barbara Hall saying, “It’s so hard to tell a whole life in 90 minutes.” Ms. Hall added, “I felt she was really an open book about her life and there were really no deep, dark secrets.” She described her part in the production as being “an honor” and said she was “very grateful” to have been part of the project.

Interesting Things Learned Accidentally

Paul Reubens—better known as Pee Wee Herman—was a close friend of Minnie Pearl’s. Also, Paul Reubens has a sister in Nashville who is a prominent civil rights attorney.

Dwight Yoakam gave praise for as long as 2 hours. Many Kleenex helped him through his emotional testimony. Indeed, he paused so long at one point in his effusive memorial to Minnie Pearl that we thought he had fallen asleep.

Garth Brooks really, really liked Minnie Pearl. He said that, from her, he had learned how to treat his fans. Not sure if Garth is held in as high esteem in country music circles since the beer can female impersonator incident (look it up), but he was very eloquent in his praise of Minnie Pearl as a female pioneer.

Other luminaries offering praise: Amy Grant (who named her daughter Sarah after Minnie Pearl); Dolly Parton; k.d. lang;Kenny Rogers, Willie Nelson; Tanya Tucker; Reba McEntire; Brenda Lee; Ray Stevens; Roy Acuff; Barbi Benton and many, many more.

Sarah’s only education was at the finishing school in Nashville known then as Ward-Belmont School. Belmont had a strong drama program, and Sarah’s original goal was to be a dramatic actress. It is known today as Belmont College and is my daughter’s alma mater.One of Sarah’s early instructors at Belmont told her: “You’ll bruise the tips of your fingers on the tips of stars, but you won’t ever be a star.” [So much for the prescience of his or her crystal ball.]

Later Years

Sarah’s health declined as her career wound down, with a breast cancer diagnosis and strokes. She donated the money to found the Sarah Cannon Cancer Institute. The documentary makes the statement that she was one of the few, aside from Betty Ford, who allowed her name to be used to help others with their disease. I immediately thought of several others who have done the same: Olivia Newton-John, Danny Thomas and celebrities like Michael J. Fox, Mary Tyler Moore, Nick Jonas, and Halley Berry who have lent their name or star power to helping others suffering from the same disease. Not every celebrity started an actual hospital (although Olivia Newton-John did) but there are many instances of famous folk supporting research aimed at their disease.

The Verdict

Well-done archival footage that will help introduce younger generations to a pioneer female comic. Interesting and entertaining. I am old enough to remember Minnie Pearl and rural enough (Iowa) to feel her brand of humor was aimed at me, but I was more of a “Laugh In” girl. It is a well-done puff piece, in large part because so many celebrities sincerely liked the real person.

Minnie Pearl’s advice to other performers (“Love them and they’ll love you back.”) is much needed today.

“Remember This” Documentary at Nashville Film Festival Stars David Straithairn

By Connie Wilson

On October 2, 2023

In Editorial, Essays on Politics: Best Political Essays & Ideology, Interviews, Movies, Politics, Reviews

David Straithairn as Jan Karski in “Remember This” at the Nashville Film Festival.

Academy Award nominee David Straithairn portrays Polish Underground hero Jan Karski in this 95-minute documentary from the Nashville Jewish Film Festival. Straithorne will be better known to audiences as Tom Cruise’s convict older brother in “The Firm” or as the Oscar nominee for 2006’s “Good Night, and Good Luck.” More recently Straithairn was the male lead opposite Frances McDormand in the Oscar-winning Best Picture of the Year, 2021’s “Nomadland.”

In this Jeff Hutchens and Derek Goldman directed tour de force one-man show, Straithairn is onstage with just a table and a chair and must carry the entire story of the Polish war hero and the Nazi genocide without benefit of anything but some accompanying music. It’s a tall order with Straitharn, an actor in his 70s, portraying over 30 characters. It is the spare black-and-white no frills approach that kept the budget to $500,000.

The film is based on the play “Remember This: The Lesson of Jan Karski” by Clark Young and Derek Goldman. As a play, it ran with Straitharn “live” at the Chicago Shakespeare Theater on Navy Pier. The film was shot on a Brooklyn soundstage in July of 2020 at the height of the pandemic, and was completed in 2022. The play was originally prepared for the Laboratory for Global Performance and Politics at Georgetown University.

Karski was a Polish Catholic with a photographic memory; he was a true Polish patriot. Said Karski, “I am a 28-year-old machine. I am an insignificant little man.” He volunteered to become a sort of human tape recorder, documenting the genocide of the Jewish population of Poland and Germany. Captured at various points in his perilous journey, he narrowly escaped death at many points, attempted suicide at least once, and maintained that he was an ordinary man until the end of his life. We see a short snippet of the real Jan Karski, and he breaks down while trying to recount his adventures.

Throughout the film about World War II a viewer cannot stop thinking of the Ukraine/Russia conflict that is ongoing. Repeated throughout the film is the question, “What can we do?” The only suggestion during the film consisted of hunger strikes to publicize the atrocities.

The seeming indifference of the top leaders of the Allied powers in the UK and the US is underscored, with Supreme Court Chief Justice Felix Frankfurter flat-out telling Jan during their meeting that he does not believe him. Likewise, President Roosevelt was being urged by First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt to do more for the beleaguered Jewish population. She wanted him to allow more Holocaust victims to flee to the United States, but he followed the lead of Sir Anthony Eden of Great Britain, who said only, “The matter will take its proper course.”

Meanwhile, as Karski is told by his Superior in London, Szmul Zgielbojm (Polish government in exile), “Tell them in London and the U.S. that we are dying. Remember this.” Repeatedly Karski is told, “Perhaps this will shake the conscience of the world.” The message that echoes throughout: “Governments have no souls. They have only their interests. Individuals have souls.”‘

While Straithairn does what he can with the part, this is no “Schindler’s List.” The filmmakers did insert some sound effects and music that aids a bit, but it is truly up to Straithairn to convey the horror of a systematic attempt to wipe out three and one-half million Jewish residents of Poland and 6 million throughout Europe. The numbers of Jewish survivors in Poland are reduced to a few thousand survivors.

The letter to Roosevelt and Churchill that laid it out quite baldly said, “The surviving Jews of Poland beg you to find a way to save them. The greatest crime in human history. Force the Nazi murderers to stop the systematic extinction of our people.”Karski also had meetings with the top diplomats of the U.K. and the U.S., including Roosevelt I recently completed Robert Dallek’s biography of FDR entitled “Franklin Delano Roosevelt: A Political Life.” That comprehensive history of FDR’s years in office confirms the stories that Jan Karski tells about the slow pace of world leaders; those leaders would later claim that they had not been told of the full extent of the Holocaust.

One of the most telling historical stories depicted in the film is that of Szmul Mordeko Zgielbojm, the member of the Polish government-in-exile in London to whom Jan Karski reported. Zgielbojm was a Polish Socialist politician and Bund trans-union activist. He and Karski sought every avenue to publicize to the world the atrocities being committed in Poland, Germany and throughout Nazi-dominated Europe. On May 11th, 1943, after the brutal crushing of the Polish Warsaw Rebellion by units under the control of SS-Brigadefuhrer Jeugen Stroop, Zbielbojm committed suicide to protest the inaction of the western Allied powers.

The testimony is important for history, especially in an age when there are still Holocaust deniers. Straitharn does what he can with a bare bones production. Checking out some of the original recordings of Jan Karski (the Shoah Project) is a worthwhile pursuit. You can find some links at RememberThisKarskifilm.com.

“The Disappearance of Shere Hite” Shines @ Nashville Film Festival on 9/30/23

By Connie Wilson

On September 30, 2023

In Books

Author Shere Hite wrote a bestselling book in 1976 entitled “The Hite Report.” Her G-Spot research rocked America and provided an entry point for conversations about gender, sexuality, bodily autonomy and female empowerment. The biggest revelation of “The Hite Report” concerned the need for clitoral stimulation for most women to achieve orgasm, with or without penetration. Men seemed to take it as a warning that they might become obsolete, since women could bring themselves to orgasm through masturbation alone.

She followed her book about female sexuality with a book on male sexuality. This one was not as well-received, especially by the men of America. Additionally, in a continuing series of “I don’t get no respect” Rodney Dangerfield moments, Hite had to sue her publisher (McMillan) to be paid her $250,000 salary.

Once her history of modeling and a “Playboy” gig came to light, her credentials as a graduate student at Columbia were discounted and her investigative methods were criticized. The women’s movement was in full swing; the backlash was ferocious. (I remember wearing my ERA bracelet, but the Phyllis Schaflys and the Anita Bryants managed to deep-six the ERA.) Hite said that her original impetus for writing the book was inspired by her own study of the Enlightenment as a graduate student at Columbia. She added that she hoped to take on male institutions and try to make a cultural change

Although Hite’s news conference (exactly 47 years ago on 9/30/76) announcing her first book led to “The Hite Report” becoming the 30th best-selling book of all time, with 20 million copies sold in 36 countries and translated into 19 languages, over time she would be marginalized by the literary establishment and, ultimately, flee the country to live in Paris, London, and Germany with her German husband.

Then, she disappeared, says documentary filmmaker Nicole Newnham in this 116 minute film which screened at the 52nd Nashville Film Festival on Saturday, September 30, 2023. Among other executive producers, the name Dakota Johnson stands out, Johnson re-recorded Ms. Hite’s words. Ms, Newnham attributed Johnson’s involvement to two factors: (1) Dakota Johnson was a longtime Shere Hite fan and (2) Ms. Newnham’s manager knew Dakota Johnson’s agent. Even the NBC News involvement was a moment of serendippity, as Newnham—fresh from an Oscar nomination in 2021 for “Crip Camp”—had a conversation with NBC executives that led to her involvement, joining others already working on the project.

The film screened on the third day of the Nashville Film Festival. I remembered Hite as presenting as a bit of a kook during her ubiquitous 70s and 80s television appearances, but you can judge for yourself by watching the interview with David Hasselhoff on Mike Douglas’s talk show after the publication of her 1982 book “On Male Sexuality.” Flamboyant was the term chosen by one old friend.

Hite’s books on human sexuality were groundbreaking. The original Hite Report was unavailable for decades, until a reprint issued in 2003 (with an introduction by Hite herself.) Amazon described the original book this way: “One hundred thousand women, ages fourteen to seventy-eight, were asked what they do and don’t like about sex; how orgasm really feels, with and without intercourse; how it feels not to have an orgasm during sex; the importance of clitoral stimulation and masturbation; and to name the greatest pleasures and frustrations of their sexual lives, among many other questions.

The Hite Report declares that orgasm is easy and strong for women, given the right stimulation; that most women have orgasm most easily during masturbation or clitoral stimulation by hand; that sex as we define it is a cultural institution, not a biological one; and that attitudes must change to include the stimulation women desire.” The documentary goes on to point out that there was not even a word for clitoral stimulation for decades, as information was suppressed for generations. As the documentary states, “We (females) have been adjusting our bodies to male sexuality for centuries.”

The Disappearance of Sherri Hite at the Nashville Film Festival. (Sherri Hite)

Several films here at the festival (including “Another Body,” which I took in last night) suggest that attitudes towards gender are changing, but there is much evidence that barriers are still omnipresent. One needs only reference the recent Supreme Court decision rolling back abortion rights or Tommy Tuberville’s opposition to approving military appointments, primarily because the military paid for its members to travel to states that provide either abortion, or, in many cases, states that provide fertility treatments and gender reassignment surgery. I’m a resident of Illinois; it’s safe to say that Chicago is far more a mecca for such visits than Nashville or Austin (Tx.)

While Director Newnham in her interview (above) suggests that “the times, they are a-changing,” real-life blowback suggests that old habits die hard. The blowback eventually caused Hite to leave the country with her German husband and to renounce her United States citizenship in 1995. She died in 2020 at the age of 77, virtually unknown to today’s generation of women. Her flamboyant mannerisms and dress and openness about sexuality made her a marked woman. The criticism, said several personal friends, got to her. Criticism and male opposition to statements in her second book mounted and her later writing was not even bid on by the big publishers in the United States. If you are a writer and cannot publish in the United States and are “doxed” publicly because of your openness to liberal sexual beliefs in a time when the Reverend Jerry Falwell and Billy Graham and Anita Bryant are the public’s favorites, Europe becomes a haven, just as it was for Jackie Kennedy after the assassination of JFK, when she married Aristotle Onassis, partially to keep her family safe.

When even a 50-year law of the land can be undone by a minority that wants things to go back “the way they were,” it is difficult to endorse the thought that we are moving forward and making progress in our attitudes towards sexuality. This film is timely for bringing the entire subject out in the open, but are we moving forward or are we going backwards? It reminds me of the bad joke about not needing a Time Machine; we can just buy a ticket to Florida or Texas. (Kudos to the Nashville Film Festival for allowing films with viewpoints that some consider radical to screen, so that informed individuals can make up their own minds.)

Cinematographer for the nearly two-hour documentary was Rose Bush (another name that leaped out at me). Watching the trailer (above) I became aware that Rose Bush, the cinematographer, is a trans woman. I went to college with a woman named Rose Bush who actually had a brother (wait for it) named Thorn. No, that is not a joke. It’s the truth. Initially, I wondered if the Rose Bush from the University of Iowa had gone into filmmaking. Then I wondered why the transgender Rose Bush chose that name. (But, then, I always wondered why the parents of Rose and Thorn went that route, too.)

Director Newnham was nominated for an Oscar in 2021 for her documentary “Crip Camp.” She mentions bringing in top-notch filmmakers to help her project and connecting, fortuitously, with NBC, which was planning a project on Ms. Hite after her obituary set off interest in the nearly-forgotten researcher, who was ubiquitous on talk shows of the day. (See example below).

Director Newnham talks about “growing up in the seventies” and how it gave her a perspective on Sherri Hite that younger filmmakers—never having heard of the woman—didn’t have. Editors who worked on the project were in their thirties, fifties and seventies, so all generations of women were represented. Since I’ve been reviewing since 1970 and grew up in the decades prior to the seventies, I’ve lived through an even broader stretch of history. It is helpful for me to help gain perspective, both on film(s) I review and on life. Maturity made the Opening Night Film about Gloria Gaynor’s resurgence as a performing artist at the age of 80 particularly meaningful, having lived through the disco era.

Director Nicole Newnham, in a Q&A following the film, said that she has projects upcoming on other women who disappeared (one from the Renaissance) and that her previous films were not so obviously feminist. She considers “The Disappearance of Sheri Hite” as an artistic turning point for her future work. “I think I’ve always had it in me, but I’m glad to have it back.” She shared with the audience that Ms. Hite, who died of a degenerative nerve disease in 2020 after several years of poor health, left copious notes that the filmmakers followed.

“She had listed those she wanted to play her, if a movie were ever done about her life and she had lists of her favorite songs and her own personal color palate (aqua and rose). Although the filmmakers were never able to meet the woman herself, she shared that, “We were obsessed with it. We just loved it. We loved her.” She cited the fashion sense of the former model and her message for women, which was, “Each individual should be able to decide how to share their body with another person.”

This documentary was a tremendous accomplishment, with a truly outstanding soundtrack, composed of songs that were Sheri Hite’s personal favorites, like Rachmaninoff’s 3rd Piano Concerto or his No. 2 Op18 or Chopin. The music used to enhance the film’s various moments was particularly effective, with kudos to Music Editor Porsteinn Evford and additional music, scoring and score production by Paul Koch.

The entire 2 hour film was informative, educational, and thought-provoking, I hope to receive answers to some specific questions from Nicole Newnham, once formulated, which will appear here in a future article.

“Another Body” Traces Deep-Fake Porno in Timely Documentary

By Connie Wilson

On September 29, 2023

In Editorial, Education, Movies, News, Pop Culture, Reviews, Science and Medicine

A timely issue for our time is the use of deep-fake video. It was one of the sticking points during the recent 148-day Hollywood entertainment strike. It is bound to rear its ugly head again during the 2024 presidential race. Porno videos with famous people’s faces super-imposed on the bodies of others are out there. In this documentary, it is a college student who makes the discovery that there is “Another Body,” represented as hers, circulating on the Internet. The supreme irony is that, in able to testify to the damage being done to victims like the fictional Taylor Klein, she had to “deep fake” her own testimony, (which made it all the way to the White House.)

In the timely documentary “Another Body,” directed by Sophie Compton and Reuben Hamlyn (co-written by Isabel Freeman), a college student discovers deep fakes represented as being Taylor, circulating online. Using video diaries, synthetic media, and 2D and 3D animation, the documentary takes you behind the scenes: who did this and why and how can it be stopped and rectified? :”I kept asking myself who would do this and why would they want to do this? I worry that they are going to do something more drastic? I believe that, in his mind, he is getting back at us for rejecting him.”

THE GOOD

I marveled at the expertise that the filmmakers showed in presenting this complicated story to us, using dummy-like automatons to represent the fictional “Mike” (the perpetrator that Taylor and friends track down over time.) It was very impressive in regard to its technical achievements.Bravo!

I empathized with statements like, “I’ve had to deal with all the consequences that he should have had to deal with. I’ve had to leave the fun group, but he hasn’t.” 9,500 porno sites with 14 million hits a month sounds like the death throes of a decadent society. Are sites like PornHub that “normal” in this country’s incel culture that this sort of thing is doubling every six months, as the film says? Do those who use such sites routinely end up on a roof with a gun, shooting at spectators at a Fourth of July Parade in Illinois? What-the-heck is going on? Yes, Trump is the poster boy for such bad behavior, but…really?

I also recognized that the misogyny that today’s women of the MeToo movement are not willing to put up with has been going on for decades. DJT is a throwback to those decades when it truly was “a man’s world” and, as he bragged on video, if you were male you could get away with just about anything, because that is what women were told they had to put up with in order to be “good” female citizens. Women were not supposed to “take a man’s job” and we were supposed to stay barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen, waiting on our man. R-i-i-i-g-h-t. So, I enjoyed seeing the new generation of women take on the male establishment. Maybe the good guys—err girls—will win, this time. I hope so. The request that she be respected for her professional achievements and viewed as “good” is not a pie-in-the-sky goal for the fictional Taylor of this tale; it is what women deserve, but have seldom achieved without a fight.

THE BAD

Like many other documentaries, this one could have been shorter. A half hour trim would not have taken away from the film, which became repetitive. Some of the interactions between Taylor and other victims could have been shortened.

Worst of all, the conclusion that Taylor draws near the end of the film is depressing: Sometimes the bad guys win.

52nd Nashville Film Festival Opens: September 28, 2023

By Connie Wilson

On September 29, 2023

In Movies, Pop Culture, Reviews

Gloria Gaynor

Opening Night of the 52nd Nashviille Film Festival featured the documentary “Gloria Gaynor: I Will Survive” directed by Betsy Schechter. The 80-year-old Queen of Disco—only recipient ever of a Grammy for disco music—is far from done on the world’s stage. She may have peaked in the 70s with “Never Can Say Goodbye” and “I Will Survive,” but her recently released album of Gospel songs, “Testament, earned her a second Grammy, and she isn’t done yet.

Said Ms. Gaynor, born Gloria Fowles in Newark, New Jersey in 1943, “It’s been an incredible journey. I’m just grateful to have the opportunity.”

Born one of 7 children to a single mother in Newark, New Jersey, Gloria never had a father, lost her mother at 25, and her only sister was beaten to death while trying to stop an attack on another. Gloria’s own history with men was far from romantic, with two incidents of sexual abuse at ages 12 and 17, and a divorce from her husband at age 65. Gloria has no children, as her husband Linwood did not want any.

After a concert at the Beacon Theater in New York City in 1978, when Gloria tripped over a piece of equipment onstage and fell backwards, she woke up paralyzed from the waist down. She spent 3 months in the hospital and twenty years with serious back injuries, until, at age 75, Dr. Hooman Melamed performed an 18 hour surgery on Gloria, placing 12 rods in her spine to enable her to walk again. Gloria converted to Christianity in 1982 and would embark on an ambitious journey to record a gospel album, culminating in the award-winning “Testament” after a 2013 effort failed.

As her manager Stephanie Gold recounted, “Nobody wanted this album. Nobody.” So Gloria set out to underwrite the expense of the album herself and enlisted such heavy hitters as producer Chris Steven and Bart Millard (“Mercy Me) and Jason Crabb.

Gloria’s humility and gratitude shines through in her remarks and in her actions. Shown writing a song with Bart Millard, Gloria says, “He’s a prolific writer whereas I’m still just trying after 40 years.” (The result wins the Gospel Grammy)

Gloria’s desire to “keep on keeping on” shines through during the entire film. She admits that just chilling out does not appeal to her and says that performing only 40 to 50 shows a year, at age 80, is down from the 300 she performed here and abroad when married to Linwood Simon, who kept her working non-stop and succumbed to life in the fast lane that Gloria fought against. You can’t help but feel that this album (and another currently being planned) represent, to some extent, a “giving back” to others, as Gloria’s own career winds down. Several times she mentions her 1982 religious rebirth and her desire to help others. Her own backsliding when married to Linwood she defines as feeling that “my moral fiber was dwindling” and her recent albums of Gospel music seem a chance to reconnect with her roots and, in some ways, to repay. She mentions that God has the timing down and she felt he had given her a “wake-up call.”

Director Betsy Schecht and Gloria Gaynor at Opening Night of the 52nd Nashville Film Festival at the Belcourt Theatre.

The movie has a “feel good” quality to it, especially in the scenes where the studio musicians are performing together (something that Gloria said she had not experienced before during her recording of 19 albums), and the result sounds like a true testament to the talent and determination of the woman whose anthem “I Will Survive” has been voted the #2 Greatest Disco Song of All Time (VH1). Rolling Stone, in 2021, said that “I Will Survive” was #251 on a list of The Greatest Songs of All Time. It has inspired and comforted many a lover after a break-up, but also given hope to the LGBQT community and, in the case of the song’s writer, convinced him that he would live to fight another day when he had just been fired by Motown. The song was written by Dino Fekaris and Freddie Perren and was originally the “B” side of a British hit called “Substitute.” (“You’re going to put that on the B side? What are you—-nuts?” says Gaynor).

You get a feeling of affectionate warmth from the coming together of talents of today in service to Gloria’s vision of a Gospel Roots album. They all seem to creatively feed on one another during the live sessions shown. It is heartwarming to see iconic singers of the past partner with today’s singers, much as Tony Bennett did with Lady Gaga. The affection that the singers have for one another is obvious and both Bart Millard and Jason Crabb were present in person this night. (Also present in the lobby was Steve Cropper, the “Play It, Steve” of the Blues Brothers movie.)

Gloria Gaynor and Bart Millard (“Mercy Me”) on night of the 52nd Nashville Film Festival.

This is an inspiring and entertaining look at the career of a one-woman dynamo. It holds up very nicely against the recent Little Richard documentary and the one that focused on Donna Summer. In some ways it is a more dramatic story, when all of the travails that Gloria Gaynor has faced are depicted. She seems to embody the message “I Will Survive.”‘ With the recent sad passing of the legendary Tina Turner, it is heartwarming and encouraging to hear that Gloria Gaynor is alive and well and working on another new album in a genre that some thought she shouldn’t tackle.

To cite another famous lyric, Gloria Gaynor is “getting by with a little help from her friends.”

GOP Second Debate on September 27th, 2023, Ends Up As Shout-Fest

By Connie Wilson

On September 27, 2023

In Editorial, Essays on Politics: Best Political Essays & Ideology, News, Of Local (Quad Cities') Interest, Politics

Will the Real Ron DeSantis Please Stand Up I just watched the second GOP debate. I feel like I need a shower and a stiff drink. Maybe some ear plugs, too, since at least four of the seven candidates for the Republican nomination for president were usually talking at once.

We watched the debate on Fox “live,” as it was held from the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California because I’m in Nashville for the film festival, which starts tomorrow, and the daughter’s set has mainly streaming services. We finally located it “live” on YouTube.

A British guy named Stuart Varney started this cluster-f*** off by totally mangling the name of his Hispanic co-host, Ilia Calderone of Noticias Univision. How Ms. Calderone got on this panel is a good question; she did bring some interesting questions to the candidates, including one on LGBQT people that saw Mike Pence move from a statement about protecting all Americans to one saying he would ban all transgender efforts in the United States. It’s quite a stretch from asking how you would protect LGBQT Americans, who, Ms. Calderone noted, are far more likely to be violently attacked, to vowing to attack them yourself using legal means. (Yikes!)

The three hosts were Ilia Calderone and Dana Perino and the British badly balding Stuart Varney. Not the “A” team.

Not only did Varney basically mutilate Ms. Calderone’s name in a fashion that we hadn’t heard since John Travolta mispronounced Idina Menzel’s name as Adele Dazeem at the 2014 Oscars, but Varney had absolutely no control over the combatants, although he kicked off the evening by saying, “Keep it civilized.” (Ha!)

I switched between a YouTube Live showing of the contestants and what we used to call Twitter (now “X”). Several “X” users had posted pictures of Vivek Ramaswamy’s mile-high hair next to pictures of Beavis or Butthead. (I can never tell them apart; not a regular fan.) One other “X” user had posted a picture of Vivek’s mile-high hair next to an Afro wearer, mentioning that Ramaswamy was really trying hard to get the Black vote tonight.

One analyst commented on Tim Scott’s dumb take on the UAW strike, saying something to the effect that they (the auto workers) should get fired like the air traffic controllers were fired under Reagan. Citing $86 billion in aid for union pensions, (which Scott claimed was “the1 ^st bill under Joe Biden,”) Scott criticized the auto workers desire for shorter work week but more pay and added, “Joe Biden shouldn’t be on the picket line. He should be on the Southern border.” Apparently Tim Scott has missed out on hearing about the phenomenal salaries that the Big Three CEO’s are pulling down, while, because of the financial crisis in 2008/2009, auto workers gave up many perks of their jobs at that time to help save the car companies and now would like a fair share of the record profits they are raking in. The GOP haranguing against unions is nothing new, however. I was surprised that they didn’t attempt to drag teachers’ unions through the mud with mis-statements, once again.

As the MSNBC analysts pointed out, to hear these candidates tonight, the very worst thing that Donald J. Trump has done is to not show up for the GOP debate. No mention of his planning and executing a coup. No mention of his recent suggestion that General Mark Milley be executed or his willingness to let his VP be hanged on January 6th. This ignoring the elephant in the room seems to be the norm of the new Republican party. Tonight Trump took heat from several of the candidates, including Ron DeSantis, who had meticulously avoided criticizing Trump by name until tonight, but only for his failure to appear to shout over the others. No harsh words for the man about his 91 criminal indictments or how he was recently found guilty of decades of fraud in his business practices, other than wondering why he couldn’t be here this night to join in the general chaos and talk over the other candidates, which he most certainly would have done. (My daughter wanted to know when civility and behaving in a polite fashion while debating went out of style, and my answer was, “When the GOP elevated a con-man like Donald Trump to the top spot in their party.” Which, by the way, he still occupies, even if his hold on the party is tenuous as the charges against him mount.

IMHO, it was very difficult to understand Ilia Calderon. And Stuart Varney just seemed out of his element. Dana Perino seemed to perform the best of the three moderators, but all were underwhelming.

There was a lot of criticism of the failure to control immigration at the border, with very little acknowledgement of how longstanding a problem this is. It is not just Joe Biden who has dropped the ball on immigration reform. The system is broken and Congress needs to act to fix it, but never let the truth get in the way of a good debate.

Both Mike Pence and others threw shade at Ramaswamy for doing business with China as an entrepreneur. If I heard correctly, Ramaswamyy had done business with the same organization that Hunter Biden is accused of doing business with. Pence, mentioning that Ramaswamy had withdrawn from the business deal with China in 2018, asked if that was the year Vivek began voting for president. Ramaswamy took a lot of incoming; he seemed in high spirits throughout. Ramaswamy and Chris Christie laughed at the chaos unleashed by the complete disregard for civility that these debates seem to have devolved into, with Christie literally lounging against the lectern with a big smile on his face when things were going down the tubes.

Most of the specific mentions of policies were one candidate attacking another, as when Haley attacked DeSantis or Scott attacked Haley over a gas tax. (I liked Nikki Haley’s remark of “Bring it” and how hard she worked to correct the misinformation about a gas tax in her state.)

Some mentioned that the Hispanic moderator brought up some facts that Fox viewers do not normally get to hear, like the fact that 90% of illegal drugs are sought by purchasers in the U.S. and are caught at the border (so much for the tough talk on how tough each would be on the drug cartels) or how LGBQT people are more likely to become victims of vicious attacks.

One of my favorite moments was when Chris Christie looked directly into the camera, saying that he knew DJT would be watching, and then said, of Donald J. Trump, “He’s divided people all over this country. He needs to be voted off the island and be voted out of this process.”

Neither Christie nor Burgum got much of a chance to contribute, tonight, even when the topic was something that Burgum of North Dakota claimed expertise in, energy security. This despite the fact that Nikki Haley said, “Energy security is national security.” Pence, who looked extremely tired this evening, noted that, during his stint as Vice President under the man who plotted to overthrow our national election, we (the U.S.) became a national exporter of energy for “the first time in 75 years.” Pence did not seem to give much credence to the fact that our dependence on fossil fuels has contributed to the wacky weather that we have all experienced this past year, (including the hottest day on the planet in July). The Biden administration’s attempts to move us off fossil fuels and onto other alternatives, plus the efforts to get the United States car manufacturers making electric vehicles (which China is way ahead of us on doing) is directly linked to the global warming that human mistreatment of the planet, including using coal and oil instead of wind or nuclear or solar power], has created.

I hope that someone more dedicated than me investigates whether Floridians did or did not get to vote on fracking before DeSantis’s actions on fracking and drilling. There was a heated debate between Nikki Haley and DeSantis on that very point; she seemed to be winning. DeSantis, in the manner of politicians from forever, fielded a question about the cost of college by pivoting to his own educational achievements and his military record (“I’ll be the first person since 1988 who has also served.”) It was absolutely not answering the question asked and smacked of a self-serving stroll down memory lane

I wish that Cassidy Hutchison’s insights into the January 6th riots had been viewed by as many people as viewed tonight’s so-called “debate” because they were far more relevant to selecting the right people to run our country in 2024.

“Caterpillar” Documentary to Screen at Nashville Film Festival

By Connie Wilson

On September 24, 2023

In Health/Medicine, Movies, Pop Culture, Reviews, travel

This was a fascinating documentary about a new YouTube fad, changing one’s eye color, which is done, surgically, in India. It sounded very dicey, and, as it turns out, it is.

The documentary, written and directed by Liza Mandelup of the Parts & Labor film enterprise, followed the journey of Raymond David Taylor of Miami as he set off for India to have his brown eyes turned into a color described as “frost.”

It seems that there is a thriving cosmetic industry in Cairo, Mexico, Panama, and India and, of course, the recent deaths of two American citizens in Matamoros, Mexico, (we now know), was a trip for cosmetic surgery. A friend of mine flew to Costa Rica for dental work, so I’m surprised I had not heard of this latest vision fad, but I don’t spend much time watching videos on YouTube.

David had a very rough childhood, even getting kicked out of the house while young, at one point, and he (and most of the other patients) seem to think that “Changing me will change my outlook on life.” As David says, “If I feel sad one more day, I don’t know if I’m going to make it.”

“Caterpillar” to screen at Nashville Film Festival. (Raymond David Taylor).

He doesn’t have the money for the surgery, but a well-written letter to BrightOcular explaining his desire for the implants brings an offer from them to come have the cosmetic procedure for free, if he will let the company use his story and his photos for advertising purposes.

We then meet others on this medically unregulated journey, including Izzy, a woman from New Delhi, a young man from Japan, a male underwear model and a beautiful girl from Jamaica, but the focus is on David, which filmmaker/writer Mandelop explained was her attempt to initially start out with three main characters and trace their journeys, with one emerging as central to the story.

She described this engrossing film journey into eye surgery this way: “I wanted to visually convey it. I wanted to do something that people wouldn’t think was cinematic, like eye surgery, but make it cinematic. It became an emotional journey. David allowed me to make the film that I was craving.”

In the course of the journey, we meet David’s mother, who also suffered a rough, abusive life, but tried her best as a young single mother to care for her children on wages of $2.35 an hour. David’s mother and David don’t agree on a lot of things. She is okay with David’s being gay, but she says, “I cannot deal with that if you start cutting parts of your body off and adding stuff.” She adds that she thought he was a great female impersonator. Mom’s point-of-view is, “You’re stubborn. You don’t listen.” She adds, “You’re never satisfied with the way you look.” Others in the film describe the cosmetic procedure as “a bandaid to the past.” Most of the others have selected jade green as the color their brown eyes

It is a big blow to David when they do three patients’ surgeries simultaneously and, in the process, he is given jade green eye color by mistake, rather than frost. This will mean another eye surgery to fix the error.

If you are thinking, “This can’t be safe,” you’re right. It is only about four months post-surgery after David undergoes the procedure that he describes it as “the worst mistake of my life” when headaches and visual problems begin.

All of the prospective patients seem to want to transform to some ideal person they have created in their heads. When the subject of the film appeared before us in person, however, the audience got the feeling that the subject of “Caterpillar” has, in fact, bettered his life, moving back to Brooklyn and now working as an EMT. He explained his mother’s absence from the showing as his way of “avoiding drama.”

Director Liza Mandelup and David Raymond, subject of the SXSW documentary “Caterpillar”on Opening Night, March 10, 2023.

On the left, Director Liza Mandelup and Raymond David Taylor, subject of the SXSW documentary “Caterpillar”on SXSW Opening Night, March 10, 2023.

Some other patients, we learn, who did not heed the United States opthalmalogists’ warning about the damage the implants have done (or are doing) to their eyes ended up blind or partially blind. One former patient whom David tracks down after he begins encountering headaches and blurry vision said that he woke up after 5 years with blood on his cornea. “I had to remove them or go blind.”

The unfettered access to the surgery and the patients seems quite unusual. That is, until we learn that the leadership of BrightOcular is very circumspect. No one ever comes forward to represent BrightOcular or another entity called Spectra. These agencies exist and are offering this service and heavily advertising how it will “change your life” on social media, with beautiful pictures of patients like David. They are not as forthcoming about the negatives of the procedure. The Indian physician who says he, personally, would not undergo the procedure knows this is a very risky way to change one’s outlook on life and seems to convey that through his reticence to heartily endorse the procedure.

David bought into it with words like, “This is my new beginning. I’m changing,” or “Beauty matters. Beauty gets you through the door.

Musical selections like “Stand By Me” and “I Want to Dance With Somebody,” selected by Music Supervisor Melissa Chapman, merge with the early upbeat theme of positive change seamlessly and add much to the extremely well-done production.

Afterwards, the writer/director (Liza Mandelup) and David, the chief subject, answered questions about the inspiration for the film and its aftermath. Liza said she had been doing research on the apps that can change one’s appearance when she learned of this eye surgery. She sent the BrightOcular company an e-mail asking I f she could do a documentary about the process. They were very positive in their response and never really surfaced as an entity. Their leadership remains a mystery.

Writer-Director Liza Mandelup.

She cautions that David was one of the few patients who listened to the warnings from U.S. eye doctors, post-surgery, and had his implants removed fairly quickly. Others have faced the need to have cornea transplants and some have gone blind because they refused to give up the implants over a period of years. One patient, asked what she would be content with in regards to improving her appearance, answered, “What am I content with? Just more.”

Among the best compliments of the terrific job the filmmaker did with this riveting documentary was a woman who stood up in the back during the Q&A and said, in heavily accented English, “You mean this was a documentary? I thought it was a movie!”