The old, weird Sound Unseen Music & Film Festival—of course I mean that as a compliment—kicks off at the Riverview on Wednesday night with 7 Nights in the Entry, Rick Fuller's latest rock-doc as archaeological dig, culled from a week's worth of videotapes shot at the 7th St. Entry in 1981 and thus eligible for future repackaging as The Decline of Midwestern Civilization.
For a harder look at Fuller, see Peter S. Scholtes's "Seen Your Video." For a preview of live gigs and events that accompany this year's lean but still vital fest, see A-List, p. 34. And for reviews of 10 other Unseen flicks, all screening at the old, weird Ritz in Nordeast, see below.—Rob Nelson
Tonite Let's All Make Love in London
Thursday at 7:00 p.m.
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Released in 1967, this "pop concerto for film" by Swinging London field correspondent Peter Whitehead includes copious footage of Julie Christie, Mick Jagger, and Michael Caine trying to pin down the mystical essence of "what's happening." That all of them fail seems to suit the director's counter-countercultural aim. Yet Whitehead's slapdash approach—celebrating the bliss of directionless rebellion while deflating its hype—isn't altogether incomplete or incoherent. Footage of Buckingham Palace's changing of the guard is interrupted by a single shot of a tripped-out Londoner sporting faux military duds; Jagger's stated dismay at protest violence is followed by footage of him barely escaping the grasp of fervent fans. —John Behling
You're Gonna Miss Me
Friday at 7:00 p.m. If you only see one gushy, poppy rock-doc about an influential singer-songwriter—renowned as much for his music as for his near-tragic mental illness—that features candid intimacy with the subject's folks and canonizing interviews with Gibby Haynes and Thurston Moore, go rent The Devil and Daniel Johnston. Not to dismiss this movie's chronicle of 13th Floor Elevators frontman-turned-LSD burnout Roky Erickson, whose legendary banshee tenor paved the way for Janis Joplin and whose pantheon status as psychedelic-rock grandfather warrants rediscovery. You're Gonna Miss Me is entertaining, but it skimps on perspective and complexity. —Aaron Hillis
Electroma
Friday at 9:15 p.m. This moody piece from French techno duo Daft Punk translates the group's man-machine fixation into art-film form—without so much as a single bar of Daft Punk music. Clad in matching leather jumpsuits, a pair of unnamed robots race across the desert in a black sedan (license plate: "HUMAN"). They arrive at a bleached-white lab where their chrome visors and space helmet-sized heads are painted over in synthetic putty, then sculpted into (grotesque) human faces. As a music video, Electroma would've likely equaled the group's top-notch collaborations with Spike Jonze and Michel Gondry. As a glacially paced, dialogue-free experiment, it's still surprisingly catchy. —John Behling
Girls Rock!
Saturday at 3:00 p.m. You can be forgiven if your first thoughts on this documentary are: "Girls rocking? Adorable!" After all, it does begin with killingly cute images of moppets aping Pete Townsend's windmill arm on guitars almost as big as themselves. But the movie quickly narrows its focus to follow the individual stories of four attendees at Oregon's weeklong session of friendship and post-Riot Grrrl empowerment—the Rock 'n' Roll Camp for Girls. Our heroines learn to scream, thrash, and sweat—and maybe to suck. In any case, the movie is a heartening reminder that little women don't need knee socks and schoolgirl miniskirts to make a crowd cheer. —Sarah Askari
Anita O'Day: The Life of a Jazz Singer
Saturday at 5:30 p.m. and Sunday at 5:15 p.m. Anita O'Day isn't as well known as Billie Holiday or Ella Fitzgerald, but she gets her due in this valuable documentary. O'Day, who passed away last year, was beautiful, adventurous, salty, more than a bit self-destructive, and gifted with a voice that could glide effortlessly within the notes of any jazz composition. She was also addicted to heroin and never held onto money for long; nevertheless, she sang well into her 80s. The film brings interviews with O'Day's contemporaries together with rare concert footage while spending plenty of time with the "Jezebel of jazz" herself as she sums up her well-worn experience in a frank yet often joyful manner. —Caroline Palmer
Silver Jew
Saturday at 7:45 p.m. This hour-long tour doc comes with a couple of hooks. One is that Silver Jews, veteran indie rockers led by Nashville song-poet David Berman, have never toured before. The other, hookier hook is that it documents the tour's Israeli leg, which for Berman, a secular Silver Jew until recently, is a pilgrimage. So we see him trying to track down a Star of David chew toy for his "Jewish dog," and, later, praying and weeping at the Western Wall. For those who view Berman as an ambassador of '90s hipster irony and dispassion, the latter scene might mark a small subcultural shift. Or not. —Dylan Hicks
Air Guitar Nation
Saturday at 9:15 p.m. "My long strums are pretty fucking tight," gushes one faux-ax-stroker in this slick, hilarious, and at times even suspenseful ode to competitive mock-rock and/or the further decline of Western civ. Power-chord mimes here include Krye Tuff, Björn Türoque, and the kung fu-styled C. Diddy, who handily wins stateside air-solo honors and proceeds to the world cup in Finland, whereupon nationalist air-envy takes center stage and this American Idle turns, uh, political. —Rob Nelson
Holy Modal Rounders: Bound to Lose
Sunday at 3:00 p.m.
