![]() ![]() It’s like you’re pulling so hard for Pineda that you’re pulling for Diaz, too, even when the film falls short. There are so many moments in the film that are documentary gold, but the final concert scene where native son made good comes home, complete with close-up on wife wiping away tears, holding baby as she watches her husband perform for tens of thousands of adoring, screaming fans as the wind whips her hair was straight out of Hollywood. That said, Arnel and his story are thoroughly riveting, the band is actually refreshingly humble and easy to connect with, and watching the transformation and rebirth of both Journey and the kid from Manila is a pretty powerful experience. And whatever HAPPENED to Steve Perry, anyway? The question looms large and never really gets answered. Respect With Appalachian noir, David Joy unmasks race and history in the SouthĪs a filmmaker who’s constantly working to hone my own craft, it was about 20 minutes too long and lacked a clear narrative arc, especially when it came to Diaz’s coverage of the band’s history and own trajectory. So, as a Journey fan and the daughter of native Detroiters who’s a sucker for a good Cinderella story, the film bordered on a religious experience. In the spirit of full disclosure, I have a soft spot for Journey about a mile wide (and not just because they have best musical shout out to the Motor City in all of rock and roll). Thus begins the wildly implausible and totally enthralling story of how Arnel Pineda – former street kid from Manila – became the new Steve Perry, helped Journey score their first platinum album ever, and now travels around the world playing to sold out stadium crowds. Can he come to the US to audition in person? The band is desperately searching for the perfect new front man and they’ve stumbled across video of the kid on YouTube singing Journey covers. Just as he’s deciding to pack it in, he gets an email from the states – it’s Neal Schon from Journey. By the time he turns 40, he’s so despondent that he’s ready to give up on music altogether. The kid grows up, keeps singing, battles drug and alcohol abuse and tries to launch a solo career that goes nowhere. They survive playing covers of American bands like Bon Jovi and Journey. To support himself, he channels his amazing vocal talent into a gig in a local band. It goes something like this: poor kid from the Philippines loses his mom and ends up homeless on the streets of Manila. Aside from the fact that it’s chock full of Journey’s ridiculously addicting, rock anthem music, the beauty of the story is that Steven Spielberg couldn’t have scripted the film better if he tried. Silverdocs kicked off its 10th annual film festival Monday night with a special screening of Ramona Diaz’s “Don’t Stop Believin’: Everyman’s Journey.”Īs festival director Skye Sitney said when introducing the film, it’s one of those stories that “if it were a fictional film, you’d throw up your hands halfway through at how improbable the whole thing is.”Īnd she’s right. But I also don’t see them as necessarily damaging to young psyches. Ultimately, I don’t think all those Barbies shaped my daughter’s worldview in any meaningful way. Barbies are hardly “feminist icons,” no matter how hard Mattel marketed President Barbie or Astrophysicist Barbie. I didn’t buy them Barbies just had a habit of walking in the door. “I just thought they were a little bit much – the body shape, then all the clothes.”My own daughter, now well into adulthood, had lots of Barbies: six, to be precise, recently discovered in varying degrees of disarray in a box in the basement. We were a Barbie-free household.“I didn’t really believe in Barbies,” she said. ![]() So, as I often do, I tested my memory in a call to Mom. ![]() I remember, as a kid in the 1960s, playing with Barbies at friends’ houses but not having Barbies of my own. “Barbie” the movie – reviewed here by the Monitor – is really an invitation to think about how we raise our children, and about expectations. It also invites introspection about our own childhoods. When I tell people a generation younger that I went to the “Barbie” movie, the response is often, “Why?!” To which I respond, “Why not?” What better way to escape the Washington heat – and politics – on a Sunday afternoon in July than with a live-action fantasy about an iconically kitschy, mass-produced doll? Plus, I wanted a good laugh.But I soon discovered there was more to the film than a frothy pink romp through Barbie Land (and beyond) and many jokes at the expense of poor Ken. ![]()
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