Movie Reviews: College Road Trip, CJ7

 
LAST STOP FOR PAUL Writer-director Neil Mandt is Charlie, and cinematographer Marc Carter is Cliff, his companion on a 'round-the-world trip. Their goal is to honor the wishes of a dead friend, Paul, by leaving spoonfuls of his ashes in Jamaica, Chile, Greece, Japan, Vietnam and Thailand. Along the way, they swap travel yarns with fellow nomads, and thus we get glimpses of Russia, Egypt and England too. Crisply shot on a lightweight camcorder, the Panasonic DVX100A, the prevailing impression of Last Stop for Paul is of an amiable, homespun travelogue done in the style of Bruce Brown's Endless Summer. The adventures are all pretty mild, but have in their favor that they feel authentic: Cliff gets robbed by a pair of sexy bar girls; Charlie and Cliff get arrested in Vietnam; two Irish guys they meet in Chile nearly steer them off a hairpin turn in the Andes. The results are so lightweight that it would be hard to justify paying 10 bucks for a ticket. Yet despite this considerable defect, the film is charming; Mandt directs and acts with great zest and contagious, unpretentious good cheer. (Sunset 5; AMC Loews Broadway) (F.X. Feeney)

 
MARRIED LIFE  Click here for full review by Ella Taylor. (ArcLight Holly­wood, ArcLight Sherman Oaks, The Landmark, Monica 4-Plex, Playhouse 7)

 
MISS PETTIGREW LIVES FOR A DAY Click here for full review by Ella Taylor. (Selected theaters)

 
GO  MY NAME IS ALBERT AYLER Though he polarized critics in his prime, African-American avant-garde saxophonist Albert Ayler has come into favor as a cult hero and jazz pioneer long after his body was found floating in the East River in 1970 — a presumed suicide. The Cleveland native was only 34, having already collected acclaim in Sweden, France, England and New York for his animated, multiphonic skronk fests, but his uncompromised artistry never produced much scratch; friend and acolyte John Coltrane was known to give him handouts. Swedish filmmaker Kasper Collin's melancholy, beautiful feature debut does more than just chronicle this undervalued musician; it brings Ayler and his message of spiritual unity back to life. Standard doc techniques resonate with a curious poignancy as former bandmates react all over again to Ayler via headphones, and we learn how he brought his younger brother Don (intimately interviewed here, along with their father) onto the stage until he was institutionalized for psychosis. Demanding ex Mary Parks, thought by some to have isolated Ayler from his friends, rightly insists that being heard only in voice-over will just make her seem mysterious, though not nearly as haunting as Ayler's soft-spoken proclamations from seven years' worth of interviews. Matched with the rarest of performance and family footage, his well-curated oration gives the whole endeavor an impressionistic aura, as though there's a ghost in the room who still refuses to be ignored. (Grande 4-Plex) (Aaron Hillis)

 
10,000 B.C. was not screened in advance of our publication deadline, but a review will appear here next week. (Citywide)