I SAW CHAIN REACTIONS (A TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE DOCUMENTARY)

Dark Sky/Exurbia/Exhibit A's Chain Reactions is the latest documentary on Tobe Hooper/Kim Henkel's 1974 classic, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. 

The movie (coproduced with Henkel) was constructed by writer/director Alexandre O. Phillipe, who's fashioned documentaries on Psycho, Alien, The Exorcist, David Lynch, George Lucas and William Shatner. Unlike several of the latter, Chain Reactions doesn't lean on revisionist determinations. (There was no anti-mother uprising that spawned Psycho, and Ellen Ripley's ascent as a feminist icon was unpremeditated.) Chain Reactions instead allows Texas Chain Saw's aesthetic quality to seize the reins, never clamping its results with a carved-in-stone outcome or overriding theme. In other words, it's a collective analysis of why the movie works on a visceral level, based on informed opinion.  

Its commentators include Stephen King (who explains why Texas Chain Saw succeeds through gritty brevity), Karyn Kusama (who considers the movie's Americana from a sardonic, social slant), Alexandra Heller-Nicholas (who reminisces on Australia's disconcerting, VHS "yellow" print), Takashi Mike (whose missed chance to catch Charles Chaplin's City Lights led him to become a lifelong, Leatherface fan) and Patton Oswalt (who compares Texas Chain Saw to F. W. Murnau's Nosferatu, praising Hooper's use of idyllic scenery as a contrasting tool to accentuate his movie's abject terror).  

Indeed (and beyond debate), the documentary's reactions are individualized (angled by ample explication), but again, the door is left wide open for ongoing analysis and discussion. The scholarly culmination, therefore, holds a satisfying, common denominator: For its raw simplicity, Texas Chain Saw says much more than not.

Because of its honest bracketing, Phillipe's documentary replicates Hooper's approach, penetrating viewers by pure unpretentiousness: a respectful turn that fans of the macabre, fifty-year-old masterpiece will appreciate.  

I saw You Can Call Me Bill

Imagi-movie, documentary director Alexandre O. Phillipe's loving tribute to William Shatner, You Can Call Me Bill, is one to analyze and revere, much like Peter Jaysen's Shatner/Nimoy Mind Meld: created, that is, for devotees; and as for those uncultivated outsiders (and that includes those cultists of Dennis William Hauck's Captain Quirk), well, to hell with 'em. 

The  reflective document works because it delivers what it promises. It's all about Shatner, an hour and forty minutes of the 93-year-old, with a result that's more philosophical than funny (though humor certainly intercedes), covering his many jaunts and challenges and how such have colored his career (and our lives). That means Star Trek and Captain James T. Kirk distinguish the grand remembrance (how could they not?), but with Shatner's sidebar triumphs also haunting our collective consciousness: T.J. Hooker, Boston Legal, The Practice, $#!@My Dad Says, The Twilight Zone and The Outer Limits, not to mention a coveted-and-achieved, space-shuttle sojourn.

Shatner's dual role in Jose Briz Mendez's underrated White Comanche is even acknowledged (a clever tit-for-tat that holds its own with Trek's "The Enemy Within" and "Turnabout Intruder"). This inclusion, in itself, furthers You Can Call Me Bill's thorough slant, but it's Shatner's heartfelt reminiscing (with worthy bit after worthy bit, stretching from his youth through his senior years, from times of impoverishment to the well-deserved comebacks) that enlivens Phillipe's expedition. Here we get the still-virile Shatner in a frank, no-frills context, poised under the hot lights, as we, the audience, witness his soulful reveal. 

The content comprises what few actors could hope to gain, but as You Can Call Me Bill implies, Shatner isn't like most actors. He's distinct and original like Bogart, Wayne, Cagney, Eastwood and Brando, with an energetic emoting that's parroted by others because, damn it, Shatner is a charismatic one of a kind. He's relevant, persuasive and beloved, even by those who may have cause not to admire him (pardon the paradox). 

As a lifelong, Shatner fan, I appreciate Phillipe's sincere staging, for it summons the best from the best. For sure, You Can Call Me Bill may come and go in theaters, but like Trek (and Shatner's marginal, though no less important works), this one will endure: a gem that's already a classic without any need of fermentation.