New York Doll
January 21, 2006
Just a quick note for those of you who are local. New York Doll is playing this week at the University 4 theaters. If you didn’t get a chance to see it the first time around, now’s your chance. And you’ll only pay $1.50 for the privilege. (50¢ on Tuesdays.)
Nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at last year’s Sundance Film Festival, Doll was described by one critic as possibly “the only documentary that will appeal to punks and Mormons alike.” But surely it deserves a wider audience than that.
And, whatever you do, be sure to stay until the end of the closing credits for David Johansen singing an acoustic version of “A Poor Wayfaring Man of Grief.” Truly one of the most surreal film moments of 2005.
Comments
Alex
Great! I was very sad to miss this one and will jump at this chance.
In the same genre, Richard Dutcher’s new film States of Grace is in re-release this week (for one week depending on how it performs). I inadvertently provided a blurb for this film. It has a “100% fresh” rating in the tamotometer at present - which I link to but warning it has spoilers. I also find those blurbs oddly misrepresentative.
The film’s site has theater listings - and much better blurbs, and the trailer.
s'mee
Our youngest went to see this when it was in SLC and thoroughly enjoyed it. She found it oddly fascinating and hilarious. She appreciated the end song (hymn)as that is one of her favourites, and what a way to hear it.
ames
I was a missionary at the LA Visitors’ Center in 1989 and 1990. I was in Spanish work at the time, so I didn’t actually teach Arthur, but I worked with the Visitors’ Center sisters who did, and I knew Arthur as a VC regular. Sister Lambert and her companions would bring Arthur to the Visitors’ Center to teach him the discussions (because he was a single man mission rules dictated they couldn’t teach him in his apartment).
We all knew Arthur had been a famous musician, and “New York Dolls” rang a faint bell in our pop culture psyches. But all of us VC sisters had been in elementary school in the 70s and had been raised in fairly sequestered Mormon homes. Of course we had no real idea of who the New York Dolls were. I’m excited to see the movie and to see Arthur again.
Chris
What??!!! You knew Arthur and never told me? We need better lines of communication in this family.
ames
Oh yes, Chris. My brushes with fame in the Los Angeles mission were many and varied and included Arthur, Joyce Vincent Wilson (the one-third of “Tony Orlando and Dawn” who wasn’t Tony Orlando or Telma Hopkins), the blonde guitarist from WASP, and other luminaries too numerous to mention.
In 1989, you were in the midst of teenagerhood. I’m quite sure you never read any of my faith-promoting, celebrity-encounter-filled letters home. For that matter, I’m quite sure you never even realized I wasn’t around for 18 months.
jenny
I think that Chris was in his sullen “Don’t Bug Me, I’m Brooding” phase then. I, on the other hand, spent hours hoping you’d marry the egg-made millionaire [who wasway past his “Best By” date] who’d proposed numerous times and had a crazy mother who lived with him in his pink Beverly Hills mansion, so that my life would be transformed from one of back-breaking manual labor and exposure to toxic chemicals (I worked in a wood shop) into a giddy whirlwind of wealth and frivolity. *Pthhhpt!* Fat lot of good that did…
jenny
I just remembered, Ames: didn’t you once meet the Bobby half of the Bobby and Cissy dance team from the Lawrence Welk Show?
If you add that fourth to the three you’ve already mentioned, that would definitely justify the use of the term “many and varied.”
Alex
Saw this last saturday. Oh my heck. Loved it.
[clue spoiler] Esp. his relation of experience with the Book of Mormon.. ah ha ha! Priceless.