SXSW ’18: Ruben Blades is Not My Name

It is tough to get discovered working in a record label’s mailroom, but it sure helps if producer-recording artist Larry Harlow has the office next door. Ruben Blades also had some catchy songs he worked on during his lunch breaks—as well as a law degree from Harvard. For some, Blades was the last great Fania superstar, who helped the Salsa company breakout internationally with his politicized lyrics. To others, he is a recognizable actor from Hollywood films like The Two Jakes and Mo’ Better Blues. Supposedly winding down his musical career with a farewell tour, Blades welcomed filmmaker Abner Benaim’s camera to help explicitly define his legacy in Ruben Blades is Not My Name (trailer here), which premiered at this year’s SXSW.

It is easy to see why questions of legacy are top of mind, given how many of the Fania All-Stars are no longer with us (including Ray Barretto, Celia Cruz, Héctor Lavoie, and Pete “El Conde” Rodríguez). On the other, many of the surviving Fania artists are conspicuously missing (particularly those involved in litigation), but at least the great Larry Harlow is present and accounted for. Regardless, the sequences directly pertaining to Fania are definitely the doc’s strongest, which is fortunate, because they are also what Blades fans probably most want to see. Alas, those hoping for the definitive “making of” history of Color of Night with Bruce Willis and Jane March will have to look elsewhere.

Conversely, the film is at its weakest when celebrating Blades’ political activism, possibly because his generally leftist worldview so closely aligns with that of Benaim’s. However, we have to give Blades, the one-time Panamanian presidential candidate, credit for expressing some criticism of the Chavez/Maduro regime, even though he is nowhere near as vociferous as he was speaking out against Reagan’s anti-communist policies in the 1980s. Nevertheless, he was largely on the sidelines when the Chavists and their allies used ostensibly democratic constituent assemblies to roll back democracy throughout Latin America—a fact a different, less radicalized filmmaker might have pressed him on.

In any event, Blades is clearly running this show, which will probably be fine with his fans. To his credit, he faces up to the illegitimate son he recognized relatively recently in 2015—and that is obviously a hard topic for Blades to discuss so openly. Altogether, it is decent portrait of an internationally influential artist. Recommended for fans of Blades and Fania, Ruben Blades is Not My Name screens again this Tuesday (3/13) and Wednesday (3/14), as part of the 2018 SXSW.

Fear the Walking Dead: the Zombie Prequel

Unlike Deputy Sheriff Rick Grimes, Travis Manawa and his family did not sleep through the zombie uprising, but they still never saw it coming. Like the Spanish Inquisition, nobody expects the zombie apocalypse. LA traffic and attitudes only makes the problem of undead hordes worse in Fear the Walking Dead—the Complete First Season (trailer here), the AMC Walking Dead prequel series now available on DVD and BluRay.

As far as viewers know, Nick Clark is the first person to see zombies and live to tell the tale. Unfortunately, as a heroin junkie who ran into traffic, nobody will give his warnings much credence, not even Clark himself. Frankly, his widowed mother Madison Clark and sister Alicia are rather glad to have him in the hospital, where he can presumably be watched for his own good. However, this is an unusually busy day for emergency services, allowing him to slip out.

Clark and her high school teacher boyfriend Travis Manawa will try to track him down, but the city seems to be crazier than usually. There have been a rash of police shootings in which the bodies are absolutely riddled with bullets. Like a budding Tarantino, Manawa’s son Chris is eager to protest the cops’ presumed excessive force. Naturally he takes to the streets to protest at a rather inopportune time. Manawa and Clark will try to round up their respective kids and ex-wives, in hopes they can ride out the unrest somewhere in the desert, until in a case of classic good news-bad news, the military imposes martial law.

Although the initial episodes are also rather sparing in their depictions of zombies, the first season of Fear is considerably grabbier than year one of the mother franchise. Of course, having Cliff Curtis (of Whale Rider and Once Were Warriors) to anchor the series helps tremendously. While Manawa starts out likeably square and straight-arrow, Curtis believably takes him to some dark places as the first season progresses. He also develops some believable chemistry with Kim Dickens’ Clark. Ruben Blades adds further heft as Daniel Salazar, an El Salvadoran barber who reluctantly offers the Manawas shelter during a riot.

So far, the younger generation is not keeping up its end as well, but poor Frank Dillane is sort of stuck playing annoying junkie behavior as the needs-to-be-killed-off Nick Mason. Alycia Debnam-Carey also shows some promise and poise as Alicia Mason, but Lorenzo James Henrie’s personality-free Chris Manawa could get eaten by zombies and viewers would barely notice. Unfortunately, the always reliable Sandrine Holt’s talents are largely wasted on Dr. Exner, who hardly gets any character development until it is too late, but Colman Domingo (who helped rock Passing Strange) pretty much steals the show when he appears in the late episodes as Nick Clark’s mysterious protector, Victor Strand. He is reason enough to comeback for a second season.

Season one of Fear also ends more decisively than the first season of the original Walking Dead. It reaches an emotional crescendo for the main characters totally in keeping with what fans expect. Needless to say, not everyone will return for season two. Leaving viewers primed for more, Fear the Walking Dead—the Complete First Season is good zombie television (but it still cannot compare to the George Romero movies that so clearly inspired its world). Recommended for zombie fans, it releases today on DVD and BluRay, from Anchor Bay Entertainment.