pirates, a haunted road, and a lost songwriter

Treasure Island: (2012. dir: Steve Barron) Eddie Izzard is fabulous as Long John Silver, the best I can remember. (Orson Welles mumbled his lines unintelligibly and employed a crazed and unblinking stare; Charlton Heston was far too majestic, and nobody would have bought him as a ship's cook.) He exudes a vulpine intelligence which allows him to humble himself easily for a delayed reward.

Fans of the book, prepare for some updating: we now have political correctness, some of which works mightily well (a racially integrated pirate crew), and some of which falls shamefacedly flat (Jim's mother now has an enhanced and cumbersome storyline in which she has adventures with -- wait for it -- Mrs. Long John Silver!). Possibly the worst alteration is the snarky, socialist revision of Squire Trelawney. Now, instead of comrade-at-arms and philanthropist, he is the more traditional rich man, screwing over everyone and making a ridiculous ass of himself over the gold. Poor Rupert Penry-Jones gives it a game try, but you can see how crestfallen he is over the thankless task when interviewed in the extras.

On the plus side, we get the backstory on Captain Flint's ship, which makes clearer sense of subsequent events and skews our empathy towards Long John. On the downside, do you remember that wonderful, very dark sense of mystery that came with the approach of Billy Bones to the Admiral Benbow? which deepened and gloamed with the arrival of Blind Pew, the Black Spot, and the warnings about a one-legged man? A delicious shudder-fest it was, and that mystery has been stripped away, sacrificed in a communist plot to encourage our sympathy with the downtrodden buccaneers. Ah, well. Still, it's interesting, no question.

Wind Chill: (2007. dir: Gregory Jacobs) An unconventional horror film, it takes bold risks with its slow build and because it pulls no punches in portraying its heroine as a spoiled bitch through a good half of the story. It's got a low budget, and suffers some random occurrences (why exactly did she get locked in the restroom?). If it succeeds, and whether it does is largely a matter of taste, it is down to the charms of its two lead actors, the ever-shining Emily Blunt and Ashton Holmes, whom you'll remember as the son in a History of Violence, and who has become in Hollywood, I think, the dependable guy whose resume gets pulled whenever a forlorn casting director says, "I wish we could afford Jesse Eisenberg."

*SPOILER ALERT*

Searching for Sugar Man: (2012. dir: Malik Bendjelloul) How often do you see a truly heart-warming documentary? And about a musical figure? Never. (I went into Kevin Macdonald's Marley with an age-old and unquestioned assumption that the rasta genius was also a genius at fatherhood. I don't know why. I guess because Ziggy was always smiling. It turns out that for all his talents, he sucked at parenting. Two different kids tell the story of how he'd start a race with a six-year-old, run as fast as he could, then turn around and mock the kid who was struggling to catch up. Man, that's cold.)

Let's face it: most rock stars we already know too much about. If nothing else, we know where they'll be choking on their vomit or the location of the bathtub where they'll take that hot shot or which venue on which night will be their last, and it darkens the hue of the rest of the film. That, or we know it's going to trail off into mediocrity as they dwindle into rich old men with our polite documentarian pretending they are still vital. Even Scorsese's lovely piece on George Harrison, Living in the Material World, as positive as it is, can't be called uplifting because life is complicated, and fame is complicated, and hero-worship can be deadly.

So here we have the story of a man who was Detroit's answer to Dylan in the late sixties, Sixto Rodriguez. Never heard of him? Because his records never sold here. In Apartheid South Africa, though, he was bigger than Elvis. More than one generation grew up venerating him as the voice of a rebellion.

Without giving too much away, it's as uplifting as it comes, because we expect stories of the almost-rans and the could-have-beens to be tales of despondency and failure and drugs, and this one is about the guy who had the genius, should have been famous, wasn't, and lived his life well anyway. See it.