Best Bets for Oct. 7-9, 2011: Check out Dolly Parton, Mutemath, “The Broken Statue” and more
Dolly Parton (AP file)
1. Listen to Grammy-nominated rockers Mutemath at 9 p.m. Friday at The Conservatory, 8911 N Western. Doors open at 8 p.m. Information: www.conservatoryokc.com.
2. See the world premiere of the play “The Broken Statue,” by state author Bob Perry, at 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday and 2:30 p.m. Sunday at Jewel Box Theatre, 3700 N Walker. The play is based on various events in the lives of former Oklahoma Gov. E.W. Marland and his wife, Lydie. Information: 521-1786 or www.jewelboxtheatre.org.
3. Hear Edmond red dirt star Stoney LaRue & the Arsenals at 11 p.m. Friday at the Wormy Dog Saloon, 311 E Sheridan. Doors open at 6 p.m. Information: 601-6276 or www.wormydog.com.
4. View new work by Oklahoma artists during the monthly Paseo Gallery Walk from 6 to 10 p.m. Friday and noon to 5 p.m. Saturday in the Paseo Arts District. Information: www.thepaseo.com.
5. TULSA — Hail the “Queen of Country Music” when Dolly Parton plays at 8 p.m. Saturday at the BOK Center, 200 S Denver. Doors open at 7 p.m. Information: (866) 726-5287 or www.bokcenter.com.
-BAM
Real-life “Horse Whisperer” inspires award-winning documentarian’s Cindy Meehl film career with “Buck”
Cindy Meehl
A version of this column appears in Friday’s Weekend Look section of The Oklahoman. To read my DVD review of “Buck,” click here.
Real-life “Horse Whisperer” inspires award-winning documentarian’s film career
BAM column: First-time filmmaker Cindy Meehl is gaining Oscar buzz for “Buck,” her moving documentary about renowned horseman Buck Brannaman that was released this week on DVD.
It may be her first film, but Meehl, 54, already has won the documentary audience award at the Sundance Film Festival and is garnering Oscar buzz for “Buck,” her chronicle of Brannaman’s life and work as the country’s foremost practitioner of natural horsemanship.
“I felt really compelled to do it. I mean, it was kind of a funny story because I had seen him and I was so moved by what he taught and how he was able to empower people not only around their horses but around their entire lives and the people in their lives,” And empower them in a good way, not to where they overpowered people but where they could work with people with a sensitivity and a patience and a kindness. And that’s what was so incredible,” Meehl said in a phone interview Tuesday, the day “Buck” debuted on DVD.
“When you leave Buck’s clinic, you not only come away with a lot of horse knowledge, but you come away with this horse knowledge that really becomes life knowledge. And that was so profound to me … and I have done a lot of things in my lifetime and there’s very few times when something resonates that deeply to where you just think, ‘This is amazing. Everyone just needs to get a taste of this.’ It was something that I felt so strongly about and I was wanting to share it.”
For nine months of the year, Brannaman travels the country teaching clinics that encourage owners to train their steeds by forging bonds of trust and communication. The technique doesn’t involve whispering so much as it emphasizes using a calm demeanor and body language to connect with horses.
“I fell in love with horses when I was 7 and I went to a birthday party where they had a pony,” Meehl said. “And I had never really been up close to a horse before until that moment. I was just instantly in love. I remember I kept sneaking out of the birthday party to go to the back yard to see this pony that just fascinated me to no end. My mom said that’s all I ever drew in school, and that’s all ever really remember drawing.”
The Redding, Conn., resident was 12 when she got her first horse. When she was in her 20s, she moved to New York to pursue a career as a fashion designer. After a decade of urban living, she returned to the country where she would raise her two daughters, start an art and photography studio and again keep horses.
She bought her children an Arabian pony from Vern Smith, a Montana rancher who taught her about natural horsemanship and encouraged her to look up Brannaman. if she wanted to see a master of it at work. An English-style rider, Meehl wasn’t sure she would learn much she could use from the cowboy, but she was intrigued enough to haul one of her horses five hours to Pennsylvania for one of Brannaman’s clinics.
“I come from a very different discipline, and yet I realized that what he teaches is just as much for your hunter-jumper, your dressage rider, your polo player, your barrel racer. It doesn’t really matter what you’re doing; it’s really about communicating with your horse,” she said.
Since Brannaman doesn’t often teach on the East Coast, it was another five years before Meehl attended another of his clinics, borrowing a mount from her aunt to take a session in Texas. She again found his teachings remarkable and relatable, and she enjoyed getting to know the horseman a little better when Smith introduced them.
Meehl quickly signed up for another clinic at McGinnis Meadows Ranch guest ranch in Montana, where she eventually shot the opening sequence for her film. During that clinic, she asked Brannaman if he would let her make a documentary about him, and to her surprise – as well as his own – he agreed.
“I just thought, ‘This is something that I really would like to share with people,’ and the fact that I hadn’t made a movie before didn’t really deter me that much,” she said with a laugh. “And it possibly was a naïve thought at the time, but I just went up and asked him. I didn’t discuss it with people. Nothing. I just went up and just said ‘I’d like to do a documentary,’ and when he said yes, I just thought, ‘I’m gonna figure this out. I’m gonna go do it. And I did. And it wasn’t easy. It was a lot harder I think than I anticipated, but it never deterred me from seeing it through.”
In a June interview, Brannaman told me he still isnt’ sure why he agreed to the documentary.
“She just happened to catch me the right day, and I said, ‘No, go ahead and do it,’ ” Brannaman said with a chuckle. “She could’ve probably asked me 10 times in a row some other time, and I’d have said, ‘Uh, no thanks.’
“I did trust her, and I knew that she wouldn’t disappoint me,” he added. “I had known her for a while, and it’s interesting because most of the time, the way the film business works is that you’re a filmmaker and then you gotta search around and find a compelling topic to do a film on. And it was just the opposite for Cindy: She had a compelling topic that she wanted to tell a story on, and it turned her into a filmmaker.”
For the next 2 ½ years, Meehl and her team filmed 300 hours of footage, capturing Brannaman’s training sessions with horses and their humans, his home life with his wife Mary and teenage daughter Reata, and his lonely existence on the road. Through interviews with his foster mother, as well as old photos and videos, they also were able to share his tragic backstory: As boys, Brannaman and his brother Smokie were renowned trick riders, but their skills were cruelly honed by their alcoholic father until the authorities removed them from his care.
“There was that trust. And I think that Buck, he puts a lot of stock in people who try. I mean, I’m not the best rider in the world, but he sees that I listen and I really try my best when I’m in his clinics,” Meehl said.
“The letters that we get, people are saying that it’s just literally life-changing, that it’s changed their lives or put them on a different path. And that really is the reason I did it. I didn’t need to suddenly be a filmmaker; you know, that was never on my agenda.”
Still, Meehl is embracing her newfound career, contemplating ideas for a new documentary and recutting her footage of Brannaman into a set of educational DVDs for horsemen. She plans to travel with her first film to Brazil, United Arab Emirates, Norway, Sweden and The Netherlands and just returned from Switzerland, where “Buck” won the International Documentary Film Competition at the Zurich Film Festival.
“I had all these people from Switzerland and Germany coming up to me saying, ‘Oh, your film just moved me so much and we’re so happy you brought it.’ It was the same comments only with an accent that I get over here,” she said with a laugh. “It made me so happy. “My original intention and goal was to share his message with the world, and that just gave me chills to go over there and see that it doesn’t matter what language you speak and what your borders are, it still translates.”
-BAM
DVD review: “Buck”
From Friday’s Weekend Look section of The Oklahoman. To read my interview with “Buck” director Cindy Meehl, click here.
“Buck”
You don’t have to be a cowboy or equestrian to appreciate the soulful humanity of “Buck,” the heartwarming documentary about the life and work of renowned horseman Buck Brannaman.
The real-life inspiration for the novel and movie “The Horse Whisperer,” Brannaman has become the foremost advocate of natural horsemanship in the United States. The Wyoming-based trainer spends 40 weeks a year criss-crossing the country to teach clinics, encouraging owners to train their horses with a firm but fair attitude and form trusting partnerships with their mounts.
Whispering isn’t really part of his repertoire, but first-time filmmaker Cindy Meehl shows that there’s something nearly miraculous in the way the intuitive cowboy connects with horses and humans. The film repeatedly chronicles the calm, low-key horseman reforming a fractious steed using just a flag, a rope and a sure hand. Each equine transformation, spot-on human observation and gently drawled life lesson is just as fascinating and profound as the one before it.
As Meehl reveals his heartbreaking background, Brannaman’s almost mystical bond with testy or terrified horses seems even more magical and intriguing. As children, he and his brother Smokie became famous trick ropers, but their alcoholic father brutally beat them to ensure they performed to his high standards. After their protective mother died, the abuse worsened until the boys were placed with seasoned foster parents and ranchers Forrest and Betsy Shirley.
The film features interesting interviews with Brannaman’s foster mother, wife, daughter, students and even Robert Redford, who employed the horseman as an adviser on “The Horse Whisperer.”
Already the winner of the documentary audience award at the Sundance Film Festival, visually splendid and emotionally resonant “Buck” will likely contend for similar honors at the Academy Awards. Cinematographers Guy Mossman and Luke Geissbuhler spotlight the majesty of the Western landscapes and the lithe horses, while Meehl and editor Toby Shimin effectively contrast the dreadful cruelty of Brannaman’s childhood with the tender subtlety of his training methods.
Much like its subject, “Buck” is at its best when it ventures into the round pen with the horses. Even in the tragic case of a stallion who has become a dangerous predator rather than a domesticated steed, Brannaman’s kindhearted wisdom remains apparent and inspiring.
DVD features: Several deleted scenes plus audio commentary with Brannaman, Meehl and producer Julie Goldman.
— BAM
CD review: Jason Boland & the Stragglers “Rancho Alto”
From Friday’s Weekend Look section of The Oklahoman. To read my recent interview with Jason Boland, click here.
Country
Jason Boland & the Stragglers “Rancho Alto” (Proud Souls Entertainment/APEX Nashville/Thirty Tigers)
Oklahoma-Texas band Jason Boland & the Stragglers remain defiantly devoted to old-school country music while even more tightly embracing their red dirt roots on “Rancho Alto.”
Like their previous albums, the sixth studio release from Harrah-born and bred singer/songwriter/guitarist Boland and his cohorts — guitar, pedal steel and dobro player Roger Ray, bassist Grant Tracy, drummer Brad Rice and fiddler Jeremy Watkins — shows no signs of adapting to contemporary country trends.
Instead of name-dropping Merle Haggard and Waylon Jennings, the Stragglers prefer penning and performing story songs reminiscent of the outlaw greats. And when Boland croons about a wooden dance floor covered in sawdust, a rusty screen door and “good-timing cowboys and girls,” he isn’t creating yet another arena rock-inspired rural anthem; rather, he and his bandmates are authentically executing the slow and sad two-step “Forever Together Again.”
The sweet waltz “Every Moment I’m Gone” explores the “fine line between the highway and home” for the hard-touring band, while the dancehall ballad “Between 11 and 2” encourages lonely hearts to keep the faith that love will find them.
With “Rancho Alto,” Boland’s songwriting doesn’t pack the emotional punch of his unflinching confessionals on 2008’s “Comal County Blue.” But the Austin, Texas, resident wrote or co-wrote eight of the 11 tracks on the new album, and his story songs are particularly compelling. The album’s toe-tapping opening track, “Down Here in the Hole,” centers on a miner stuck in a cave-in, while “Pushing Luck” introduces a desperate man supporting his family by living outside the law. With “False Accuser’s Lament,” Boland retells the 1959 country epic “Long Black Veil” from the viewpoint of a witness, a poor farmer paid off to frame the innocent man convicted of murder.
The Stragglers, who formed in Stillwater in 1998, also pay homage to their red dirt beginnings with the late Bob Childers’ Woody Guthrie tribute “Woody’s Road” and Greg Jacobs’ scathing epic “Farmer’s Luck.”
— BAM
What to do in Oklahoma on Oct. 7, 2011: Hear Stoney LaRue & the Arsenals at the Wormy Dog Saloon
Today’s featured event:
Hear Edmond red dirt star Stoney LaRue & the Arsenals at 11 p.m. Friday at the Wormy Dog Saloon, 311 E Sheridan. Doors open at 6 p.m. Information: 601-6276 or www.wormydog.com.
LaRue is currently touring in support of his new album, “Velvet.” To read my recent interview with LaRue about the album, click here.
For more events, go to www.wimgo.com.
-BAM
Happy 50th anniversary, Wanda Jackson and Wendell Goodman
In this 2009 file photo, Mayor Mick Cornett reads a proclamation with Wanda Jackson and her husband/manager Wendell Goodman as the mayor proclaims March 24, 2009, " Wanda Jackson Day" in Oklahoma City during a city council meeting. (Photo by Paul B. Southerland, The Oklahoman Archives)
The fun fact that Wanda Jackson once dated Elvis Presley often comes up in biographies and news stories about the Queen of Rockabilly.
As a matter of fact, though, the first lady of rock ‘n’ roll has been Wendell Goodman’s sweetheart for more than half a century.
Jackson and her manager/husband Goodman are celebrating their 50th anniversary Friday. The Oklahoma City couple will mark the milestone in the Bahamas, Goodman said in an email to The Oklahoman.
We hear so much about short-lived show-biz marriages, but both Wanda’s career and marriage are now into their fifth decades and by all accounts seem to be going strong.
After their golden anniversary trip, the Rock and Roll Hall of Famer will spend much of the fall touring the U.S. and Europe in support of her new album “The Party Ain’t Over,” which was produced by rocker Jack White and released in January on Nonesuch/Third Man Records.
Happy anniversary to Wanda and Wendell!
-BAM
RIP Charles Napier
In this March 12, 2011 photo, actor and author Charles Napier is shown at an appearance for his book, "Square Jaw and Big Heart," at Russo's Books in Bakersfield, Calif. (AP file)
Lantern-jawed, toothy-grinned prolific character actor Charles Napier died Wednesday in California at age 75, according to the Associated Press.
Napier may be best remembered for playing the vindictive country singer Tucker McElroy in the 1980 classic musical comedy “The Blues Brothers” as well as for his role as a scheming intelligence officer named Murdock facing off against Sylvester Stallone’s title character in the 1985 sequel “Rambo: First Blood Part II.”
The Kentucky native’s other credits include “Silence of the Lambs” (1991), “Philadephia” (1993) and numerous TV shows. To see his IMDB page, click here.
Our thoughts go out to his family, friends and fans.
-BAM
Wayne Coyne, Blake Shelton, Shiny Toy Guns nominated for MTV’s O Music Awards 2
Wayne Coyne (Photo by Chris Landsberger, The Oklahoman Archive)
Flaming Lips frontman Wayne Coyne, country music star Blake Shelton and electronica/indie band Shiny Toy Guns – who all have Oklahoma ties – are nominated for O Music Awards 2, MTV’s second fan-friendly celebration of digital music.
Fan voting continues online at www.omusicawards.com/vote through Oct. 15. The awards will be handed out Oct. 31, with the event streaming at OMusicAwards.com, MTV.com, VH1.com, CMT.com, LogoTV.com and MTVHive.com.
Coyne, leader of Oklahoma City-based psychedelic rockers The Flaming Lips, is nominated for The Digital Genius Award, along with Bjork, Girl Talk, Devo and music video director Chris Milk.
An Ada native who lives in Tishomingo, Shelton is nominated for Must-Follow Artist on Twitter, and he is competing against Lady Gaga, Blink 182′s Mark Hoppus, Snoop Dogg and Cher.
Shiny Toy Guns, which includes Shawnee native Jeremy Dawson and Chad Petree, are up for Best Artist With A Cameraphone. Other nominees in the category are Demi Lovato, Justin Bieber, The Deftones, Portugal. The Man, Young The Giant, The National, Katy Perry, Amanda Palmer and Ben Folds.
MTV premiered the OMAs in late April, pledging to offer a celebration of digital music that would vary greatly from standard industry award shows. It featured interactive, fan-voted awards that culminated in a live, multiplatform webcast on MTV Music Group websites.
In the spirit of the fast-changing nature of digital music, an MTV official recently told the Associated Press that the OMAs may crop up two or three times a year instead of annually, and the categories will remain in flux and have changed from the spring edition.
For the second OMAs, Lady Gaga and Odd Future’s Tyler the Creator are among the leading nominees, with two nominations each. Justin Bieber, Katy Perry, The Weeknd, Demi Lovato and Sinead O’Connor also received two nominations.
The first OMAs generated 3 million votes cast online and resulted in MTV’s second-largest streaming audience ever, according to the AP.
“The audience is there,” Shannon Connolly, vice president of digital music strategy for MTV, told the AP. “We know we can give them something they love even more.”
-BAM
New “The Avengers” photos released; first trailer due Tuesday
Marvel has released new photos of the hotly anticipated superhero team-up movie “The Avengers” Although the movie isn’t due in theaters until May 2012, Marvel also has announced on “The Avengers” official Facebook page that the first trailer for the movie is due Tuesday.
Directed by Joss Whedon, the movie stars Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark/Iron Man, Chris Hemsworth as Thor, Chris Evans as Steve Rogers/Captain America, Scarlett Johansson as Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow, Mark Ruffalo as Bruce Banner/The Hulk, Jeremy Renner as Clint Barton/Hawkeye, Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury and Tom Hiddleston as Loki.
-BAM
Oklahoma City Museum of Art receives 50 prints by photographer Brett Weston
Brett Weston, "Pines in Fog, Monterey," 1963.
The Oklahoma City Museum of Art has received 50 gelatin silver prints by American photographer Brett Weston (1911–93) from the Brett Weston Archive and Christian K. Keesee Collection.
The photographs date from 1940 to 1985 and highlight the range of the artist’s photography, from his early photographs of White Sands, N.M., to the glass, mud, and kelp abstractions for which he became known, to his later photographs in Hawaii. Photographs such as “Pines in Fog, Monterey “(1963), “Cut Wood, Europe” (1968), and “Ice Formation, Alaska” (1977) also reference Brett’s extensive travels.
“The Oklahoma City Museum of Art is honored to be the recipient of this generous gift from Mr. Keesee of Brett Weston photographs,” said Glen Gentele, president and chief executive officer, in the museum’s announcement. “This donation adds substantially to the museum’s growing collection of photography and is the second of three such gifts that will add another 50 Brett Weston photographs to the Museum’s permanent collection over the next year. We are grateful and thrilled by Mr. Keesee’s philanthropy.”
Brett Weston, "Banyan Roots, Hawaii," 1980.
Brett Weston, the second son of photographer Edward Weston, was born in Los Angeles in 1911. In 1925, at the age of 13, Brett began taking photographs on a trip to Mexico with his father’s Graflex camera. While there, he was exposed to the works of Diego Rivera, José Clemente Orozco, and Tina Modotti, who influenced his sense of form and composition.
He returned to California with his father in 1926 and began to exhibit his own works, while assisting Edward in his portrait studio. Brett’s work received international attention after being included in the important 1929 Film und Foto exhibition in Stuttgart, Germany.
During World War II, Brett worked briefly as an assistant cameraman for 20th Century Fox, before being drafted into the Army. Stationed with the Signal Corps in New York City in 1944, Brett took photographs of the city when off-duty and made important contacts in the photographic world.
The following year, he was assigned to the Army base in El Paso, Texas, where he became a sergeant, and began photographing the nearby gypsum dunes of White Sands National Monument. The recent donation from the Brett Weston Archive–Christian K. Keesee Collection includes examples of Brett’s acclaimed photographs of White Sands, including “Sands and Grass, White Sands” (1946) and “Yucca and Dunes, White Sands” (1946). Brett was discharged from the Army in 1946 and spent the following year taking photographs of the East Coast on a Post Service Guggenheim Fellowship.
Brett’s work often incorporates the use of close-ups and abstracted details, displaying a preference for high-contrast imagery, which reduces his subjects to pure form. Throughout his career, he has repeatedly photographed subjects including tangled kelp, plant leaves, and knotted roots and has made numerous photography trips to Europe, Baja California, Oregon, Alaska, and Hawaii, among other locations. Brett’s work became increasingly abstract in the 1970s as he began to more fully utilize a 2 ¼-inch format reflex camera. He spent a considerable amount of time taking photographs in Hawaii, during the 1980s, before his death in his Kona home in 1993.
Between 2004 and 2010, Christian K. Keesee donated 260 photographs from the Brett Weston Archive. The recent gift brings the museum’s Brett Weston Archive–Christian K. Keesee Collection to 310 photographs. The museum, along with the J. Paul Getty Museum and The Whitney Museum of American Art, is one of the largest repositories of Brett Weston photographs.
In 2008, the Oklahoma City museum exhibited “Brett Weston: Out of the Shadow,” the first major retrospective of the acclaimed American photographer’s work in more than 30 years.
The Brett Weston Archive was established in 1997 by Christian K. Keesee, a prominent art collector who purchased the entire inventory from the critically acclaimed American photographer’s estate.
Accredited by the American Association of Museums, the Oklahoma City Museum of Art serves more than 125,000 visitors annually from all 50 states and more than 30 foreign countries and presents exhibitions drawn from throughout the world. The museum’s collection covers a period of five centuries with highlights in European and American art from the 19th through 21st centuries, a growing collection of contemporary art, and a comprehensive collection of glass sculpture by Dale Chihuly.
-BAM
