If someone had told me they were going to make a movie about The Doors and the group would be portrayed by Val Kilmer (Jim Morrison), Kyle MacLachlan (Ray Manzarek), Kevin Dillion (John Densmore) and Frank Whaley (Robby Krieger), I would have said..."Man, you got to be crazy". To my surprise, this quartet of actors were able to resemble their real life counterparts enough to give the film a slight documentary feel. Only MacLachlan as Manzarek was a little distracting to me. Something about him just didn't quite look right, but maybe I kept thinking I was seeing Agent Dale Cooper in a wig.
The real standout here is Val Kilmer who loses himself in the role of Morrison. In order to convince director Oliver Stone that he was right for the role, Kilmer spent several thousand of his own dollars and made his own eight-minute video, singing and looking like Morrison at various stages of his life. During the concert scenes in the movie, Stone used the Doors' master tapes without Morrison's lead vocals and Kilmer did the actual singing in order to avoid lip-syncing. This gave the concert scenes a "true" look instead of having to sit through an obvious lip synced performance, which is the case in a lot of music biopics.
The biggest flaw with The Doors is the direction by Oliver Stone. He picked the songs he wanted to use in the film and then "wrote each piece of the movie as a mood to fit that song". While this may have seemed like a good idea to Stone, it bogged the movie down in many places with fantasy sequences. This caused the flow of the plot to grind to a halt several times during the film, making me feel I was watching music videos at those points....and I might add....boring music videos. Overall The Doors was a pretty decent movie and if it had had some of Stone's "moods" edited out it would have been even better.
If I was giving Beyond The Doors a grade, I would have to grade it CRAZY AS HELL. Although I got my copy from a private individual and it didn't include any artwork, I cribbed the following liner notes on the video from the internet: "Jimi Hendrix: The king of rock. A pleasure seeking superstar who blasted his way into college campuses with his music, drugs and erotica. Dead at 27. Janis Joplin: A free spirited symbol of the sixties who was a hard drinking, hard lovin' texas mama who gloried in tearing at her throat as she sang. Dead at 27. Jim Morrison: Founder of The Doors. His performances turned into orgies and his beautiful poetry became dark, eerie rock, protesting against the ravaging of the earth. Dead at 27. Their music got them killed! Why? How? Where? They were too powerful - they had to be silenced! Assassinated for the good of America? Find out why. "
The movie begins with a trio of men out hunting ducks. One of the men is shot by his buddies (shades of Dick Cheney). His son is bequeathed a briefcase and it contains an almost finished book by his father showing the reason he was murdered...he was going to blow the lid off the government conspiracy to silence the "three pipers of Rock and Roll". Most of the rest of the film is told in a flashback style as the movie shows us all three musicians and how they were eventually killed...well except Morrison who faked his death and entered a monastery, where he died a natural death. Why were they killed? It seemed Jimi was sympathetic to The Black Panthers, Morrison spoke out against the Vietnam War....and Janis, I never could get a clear reason they killed her, since she never really did anything political in Beyond The Doors.
Of the three actors, I thought Gregory Allen Chatman did a pretty good Hendrix when he was acting, as far as music ability it appeared holding a guitar was something foreign to him and most of the time the camera captures him only from above the guitar (a trick I guess they took from Ed Sullivan only showing Elvis from the waist up). Riba Meryl as Janis Joplin reminded me of a mix of Stevie Nicks and circa 1980's Elayne Boozler, however her song styling wasn't bad. Bryan Wolf was recognizable as Morrison since he had on tight leather pants, other than that, he looked more like Tommy James and Peter Frampton combined into one person, but once again his song styling was up to par.
Speaking of the songs, there is only "original" music in Beyond The Doors. I put original music in quotes since all of the songs sound similar to the music originally performed by Hendrix, Joplin, and Morrison. I actually found this a plus for the movie and commend whoever did the songwriting. One last note on musicians - none of the backing groups looked like any members from the original bands.... one drummer even resembled Felix Cavaliere of The Rascals and one even looked like Freddie Prinze!
The main reason for the elimination of Joplin, Morrison and Hendrix is Richard Nixon wants to be re-elected and is afraid of the youth vote and the power these three could wield if they so chose. This brings us to a small joke in the movie where a photo of Nixon is hanging on the wall and, once straighten, Herbert Hoover asks an agent how it looks and the agent replies "a little crooked".
There's a lot of craziness in Beyond The Doors such as Hendrix playing Woodstock indoors, Joplin being killed by injecting oranges with dope and then staging an overdose scene, and Morrison dying in the monastery due to what I guess old folks would call consumption (what they don't have penicillin in France?). However, the craziest to me was the inclusion of The Plaster Casters. Their appearance had absolutely nothing to do with the film and I assume someone thought it would air some believability to the movie. Sorry filmmakers, it was much to late by the time the Plaster Casters arrived for anyone to think they were watching a documentary.
Beyond The Doorswas badly acted, badly scripted, and badly filmed, but I still enjoyed it for it own unique craziness. However, if you're not a fan of bad movies, you might want to skip this one.
Back when me and my friends were "hip", we didn't think a lot about The Turtles. Their songs were pleasant enough, but when it came time to buy an album (because you know, 45's were for like teenyboppers) we went with Jimi Hendrix, Cream, The Doors, The Mothers of Invention, Moby Grape, Buffalo Springfield, The Beatles, Bob Dylan, Jefferson Airplane, etc. Years have passed and I realize that I only liked some of those groups/artists because it was the "hip" thing to do. After watching My Dinner With Jimi, I now have more appreciation for The Turtles, although I still think that they are a better "singles band" rather than an "album band".
I knew nothing about this movie, but ran across the title one day while scrolling through Netflix. The description "Howard Kaylan found fame as the lead singer of the 1960s band The Turtles, as depicted in this autobiographical screenplay. We meet Kaylan (Justin Henry) and his bandmates just as they triumph with their single "Happy Together." The band then heads off to England, where their friend Graham Nash (Steven Soldevilla) introduces them to The Beatles and Kaylan later dines with Jimi Hendrix (Royale Watkins) -- an event that changes his life." intrigued the hell out of me. I not only put it on my rental list, but moved it straight to the top. My Dinner With Jimi did not disappoint, it was everything and more that I thought it would be.
My Dinner With Jimi begins with The Turtles at a magazine promo shoot. John Corbett is the photographer in an almost non-recognizable role. We get introduced to each of The Turtles as they get their photos taken. The magazine writer who is at the shoot to do the accompanying story tells them: "Hope your looks don't hold you back." This goes with some of the commentary on the dvd when Howard Kaylan says he could always buy nice clothes, but it he good never buy "thin".
The Turtles are experiencing their biggest hit single "Happy Together" (which knocked The Beatles "Penny Lane" out of the top spot on the Billboard Hot 100). They're playing the Whiskey A-Go-Go and The Doors are their opening act. There's a great scene after the concert when The Turtles go to Canter's Deli. At the deli we find Frank Zappa and Mama Cass Elliot sitting at a table together, plus Jim Morrison is drunk and walking on tables and being a general goofball. I was also delighted to see the late Wendie Jo Sperber, my favorite actress from from I Wanna Hold Your Hand, in the role of Louella the waitress.
One section of My Dinner With Jimi concerns how Howard Kaylan and Mark Volman are about to get drafted and they get advice on how to flunk their physicals. The advice mainly has them taking massive amounts of drugs plus not sleeping or bathing before they go and being as uncooperative as possible at the draft board. The draft board sequence in My Dinner With Jimi ranks right up there with Arlo Guthrie's in Alice's Restaurant.
When The Turtles get to England they hook up with their friend Graham Nash, who also has Donovan hanging out at his house. Everyone gets stoned and they listen to "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band", which won't be released until the next day. After listening to the album Graham takes them to The Speakeasy Club so they can meet The Beatles, who they idolize. Look for the real Howard Kaylan in a cameo as the greeter/doorman at the club.
Inside the club The Turtles find Paul McCartney under the table taking photos, Ringo Starr being his usual laid back self, and George Harrison seeming to be a little embarrassed by the antics of Paul and the sharp tongue of John Lennon. Lennon is drunk and full of insults for The Turtles. Jim "Tucko" Tucker is really crushed by The Beatles and flees the club followed by the other Turtles. There is some conflicting information about Tucker in the movie and what is on the commentary. What truth I can glean is that he definitely did leave the Turtles and didn't play music again. Whether it was due to his disappointment in meeting his heroes or the fact that he couldn't take touring is unclear.
Howard remains behind and before he can reenter the club, he's approached by someone wanting his autograph. He's shocked to find out that it's Brian Jones of The Rolling Stones. In tow with Brian is Jimi Hendrix and the three go back into the club for a meal, but Brian gets sidetracked by some girls and Howard winds up alone with Jimi. I'll let you watch the movie yourself to see how this dinner goes, but will tell you that it starts great, but ends badly.
Since the title is My Dinner With Jimi, it's appropriate that one of the strongest performances in the movie comes from Royale Watkins portrayal of Jimi Hendrix. He really captures that cool laid back vibe that Hendrix always seemed to emit. Although Royale has made a handful of movies and TV shows, he's best known as a stand up comic.
The commentary made a big deal out of how they tried to make everything look as close to possible to how it looked in real life, including the club The Speakeasy. They even used Howard's old house in one scene. While I will agree that everything had the right look of the late 60s, I'm puzzled about the bad wigs and especially about the sideburns used on Justin Henry who plays Howard. In the recreation of The Turtles appearance on The Smothers Brothers Show, the sideburns can actually be seen coming loose. This is the only minor quibble I have with My Dinner With Jimi. Overall, I found the movie very enjoyable and would highly recommend it to anyone.
