Dallas Video Festival sneak previews: The Wrecking Crew, She Should Have Gone To The Moon, Finding Kraftland and Boogie Man

by John P. Meyer

Continuing with previews of films slated for the Dallas Video Festival (which opens this Thursday, Nov. 6), I've recently watched the following and can offer these words of commentary:

The Wrecking Crew - Ever wonder how musical groups as diverse as the Beach Boys, Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass and The Monkees came up with their fabuous and distinctive sounds? Well, here's a potential surprise: their sounds were, in large part, made by the same amazingly talented small group of session players, dubbed "The Wrecking Crew" by those who counted on them to put the professional polish on their top selling record productions. Most of these folks you've probably never heard of (Hal Blaine, Don Randi, Carol Kaye, Al Casey, Earl Palmer, Plas Johnson, Joe Osborn), but at least one you almost certainly have: Glen Campbell, who started as a guitar session player with the Crew and ended up where he is now.

The film is produced and narrated by Denny Tedesco - son of Tommy Tedesco, one of the linchpins of the Crew. Brim-full of great and evocative pop music stylings from the past, which serve as an added treat to lovers of golden oldies.

She Should have Gone to the Moon is like a Twin Peaks episode masquerading as a documentary about the Mercury 13, a band of valiant women pilots who went through rigorous NASA-mandated training in preparation for joining their male counterparts in the space program. Only, LBJ pulled the plug before they could fly. (Male chauvinist pig bastard!) Filmmaker Ulrike Kubatta, looking like a red-haired Eurotrash version of Betty Page, spends plenty of time on-camera as she interviews Texas-born and bred Jerri Truhill, who - along with her fellow space ladies in waiting - recently received the acclaim and recognition that had been long denied. Fascinating and weird; what's that little girl in the tutu under the crystal chandelier all about?

Finding Kraftland chronicles the exploits of Richard and Nicky Kraft, a father and son who are more like - um - father and son, only reversed. Kraft the elder (in chronological age) admits to ditching his wife (Nicky's mother) in favor of a prized kitsh collectible board game, which pretty much sets the tone of this preposterous - yet infectious - exercise in unbounded self-indulgence.

When Richard Kraft decides he wants to collect bobbleheads, he fills a whole room with 'em. When he develops a taste for Big Boy hamburgers, he not only buys the hamburgers, he buys Big Boy, and plops him down in the middle of the living room. That defunct keelboat ride at Disneyland? It now resides (the boat part of it, anyway) in a warehouse where Richard pays $700/month to keep it handy - in case he decides to go through with that plan of putting a lagoon in his back yard. (Which - amazingly - he hasn't done yet.)

The proceedings are hosted by pert and perky Stacey J. Aswad, who tours us through the jaw-dropping Kraftland pop-culture holdings. The show comes complete with interviews with some of the folks that know the Kraft boys well, including Graeme Revell and Danny Elfman. Sure, Richard is one self-indulgent SOB, but he also reveals a surprising philanthropic side - though we're never quite sure where he comes by all his seemingly endless purchasing power. (That Hollywood music agent gig must really rake in the bucks, is all I'm sayin'.)

If you go into Boogie Man unaware of the details of Lee Atwater's meteoric rise to Republican party leadership (deliberately not linking here to his Wikipedia webpage), you are in for a shock by the time this captivating hour-and-a-half documentary reaches its final minutes. Atwater is the guy responsible for the arguably filthy-dirty campaign tactics that put then-Vice President George H.W. Bush into the White House in 1988 and reduced Michael Dukakis to a sad footnote in presidential political history. Stefan Forbes' film delves deeply into the "end justifying the means" mindset now so familiar to presidential politics, and plays out as an improbably true tale of Karma coming back to roost like a carrion bird on raw meat. The parallels to the campaign of 2008 (which will have reached its conclusion by the time you see this film) are unarguable - and scary.

The story is told through archival footage and contemporary interviews with many of the historical participants, including Dukakis, Sam Donaldson, Karl Rove (who took up the reigns of Republican political affairs after Atwater left the scene) and a host of others. Early glimpses of the infancy of George W.'s entry onto the political scene prove particularly tantalizing.

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