C6 Y THE NEW YORK TIMES, FRIDAY, JULY 31, 2020
In March 1982, “Beauty and the Beat” —
that classic, effervescent, catch-a-wave-of-
pink-champagne debut by the Los Angeles
band the Go-Go’s — made history: It be-
came the first record by an all-female group
who wrote its own songs and played its own
instruments to hit No. 1 on the Billboard al-
bum chart. Thirty-eight years later, it’s hard
to decide what’s more of a shock: That it
took so long to happen, or that it hasn’t hap-
pened since.
“People automatically assume we were
probably put together by some guy,” the
lead singer Belinda Carlisle says in Alison
Ellwood’s spirited new documentary “The
Go-Go’s,” on Showtime this weekend. “But
we did it all ourselves.”
The Go-Go’s were hardly the music in-
dustry’s first commercially dominant girl
group (with their dozen No. 1 singles, the
Supremes rivaled the Beatles’ popularity in
the mid-1960s) nor were they the first gang
of guitar-slinging women to “do it all them-
selves” (the hippie-rockers Fanny and the
British punks the Slits were just a few of the
feminist-minded bands forging disparate
paths in the 1970s). But the Go-Go’s fused
those two impulses together most seam-
lessly for mass consumption. “Beauty and
the Beat” was, in the words of the bassist
Kathy Valentine, “a pop record with a punk
rock ethic.”
The “pop” part of the Go-Go’s equation is
what’s stayed freshest in our cultural imagi-
nation, thanks to the glistening sheen of
timeless, still-ubiquitous tunes like “Our
Lips Are Sealed,” “We Got the Beat” and
“Vacation.” (They were the soundtrack to a
Broadway musical in 2018.) What’s compel-
ling about Ellwood’s documentary, though,
is how thoroughly it excavates the group’s
early punk bona fides.
“There never would have been the Go-
Go’s without the punk rock scene in Los An-
geles,” the guitarist Jane Wiedlin says, plac-
ing the group within the context of local
peers like X, Bags and the Eyes (the band
that a mop-topped blonde named Charlotte
Caffey would eventually leave to join the
Go-Go’s.) While honing their chops, the Go-
Go’s toured the United Kingdom opening
for the underground heroes Madness and
the Specials, braving the jeers and spit of
angry skinheads. When we first meet Car-
lisle in the doc, she’s not wearing cheery
MTV-ready pastels, but a caustic-Elvis
sneer and a plastic garbage bag as a dress.
Caffey was “terrified” when she first
brought the group a demo tape of a little
ditty she’d written called “We Got the
Beat”: “I was thinking, man, these girls are
going to throw me out of this band, because
it was a pop song.” But her bandmates knew
a great tune when they heard one, and the
track’s aerodynamic momentum perfectly
matched the Go-Go’s’ increasingly skyward
ambitions. (The film is a treasure trove of
archival footage; one memorable clip
shows Carlisle singing an early, punky ver-
sion of “We Got the Beat” in a dingy club
and taunting the crowd to dance: “Come on,
don’t be too cool.”)
Plenty of journalists fixated on the cre-
ation myth that the Go-Go’s “couldn’t play
their instruments” when they started out —
though the same sort of scrappy, D.I.Y. ener-gy was often seen as a sign of authenticity
for male punk bands. And it wasn’t entirely
true: Caffey was an accomplished multi-in-
strumentalist who’d studied classical piano
in college; the tough-talking Baltimore
transplant Gina Schock — the group’s in-
sistent, thumping heartbeat — was a drum-
mer to be reckoned with from the day she
joined the band.
“The genuine exuberance of our music
gave people an escape and a respite from
the meanness and greed defining the era,”
Valentine wrote in her excellent recent
memoir, “All I Ever Wanted,” with the crisp
clarity of cultural hindsight. In their casu-
ally charismatic music videos, the Go-Go’s
offered the allure of rakish, why-so-serious
fun. (“We Got the Beat” had the cosmic luck
of coming out a month before MTV went on
the air.) Their take on gender equality
meant not only playing and writing just as
well as the guys, but partying as hard (or
harder) than they did, too. At their most
bacchanalian, one inebriated Go-Go re-
ceived the dubious honor of being kickedout of Ozzy Osbourne’s Rock in Rio dressing
room — no small feat.
Ellwood, to her credit, doesn’t avert her
eyes from the uglier parts of the Go-Go’s
story, like the firing of the founding bassist
Margot Olavarria, a dyed-in-the-wool punk
who objected to the band’s increasingly pol-
ished, melodic sound. “It wasn’t just about
the music, it was the sense of being pack-
aged into a product,” Olavarria recalls. “It
was becoming less about art and more
about money.”
Prophetic words. What plenty of people
found most “empowering” about the Go-
Go’s — they write their own songs! — creat-
ed, behind the scenes, a complicated power
imbalance that accelerated the band’s col-
lapse. Because Caffey, Wiedlin and Valen-
tine were the group’s primary songwriters,
their share of the profits were considerably
larger than Carlisle’s or Schock’s. That’s
probably what motivated Carlisle to pull the
biggest power move she could muster: go-
ing solo.
“I’ve wondered many times how it would
have been if part of the whole deal had been
to keep everyone happy,” Valentine writes
in her book. If the group had contributions
from all members, “we could have sup-
ported each other and granted space for
each of us to grow instead of confining our-
selves to a formula with a limited shelf life.”
But the same personal chemistry that fu-
eled the group’s rocket ship ascent is also
what made them combustible. Since that
first split in 1985, the Go-Go’s have broken
up and reformed more times than the docu-
mentary has time to chronicle. Most re-
cently, Valentine parted ways with the
group in 2012, but she’s back in the fold now.
The beat goes on.
Why hasn’t another all-female band
matched the heights of the group’s main-
stream success? The persistence of sexism
and double standards are the most obvious
answers. But maybe the young girl-rockers
that the Go-Go’s inspired also learned from
their travails and sought something
brasher and thus less compromising than
top-of-the-world success.
At one point in “The Go-Go’s,” Kathleen
Hanna, a riot grrrl instigator and the incen-
diary frontwoman of the feminist punk
band Bikini Kill, remembers attending a
Go-Go’s concert in 1982. “As a young girl,”
she says, “going into a space where women
owned the stage, and owned it unapologeti-
cally like they were born to be there — to
me, it represented a moment of possibility.”Back When They Got the Beat
GEORGE ROSE/GETTY IMAGESA documentary explores the
punk roots of the Go-Go’s, and
the power dynamics that led to
the group’s breakup.
By LINDSAY ZOLADZFrom left, Belinda Carlisle,
Kathy Valentine, Charlotte
Caffey, Gina Schock and Jane
Wiedlin of the Go-Go’s.‘It was becoming less
about art and more
about money.’FILM REVIEWS“The Cuban” opens with Cuban
jazz on the soundtrack and bright
watercolors of mid-20th-century
Havana accompanying the cred-
its. But things get more subdued,
literally, as the watercolors start
depicting a nursing home. Moving
into live action, the colors are
muted, the light diffuse. And they
stay that way to the extent that
you might wonder if something’s
technically wrong.
But no. The director, Sergio
Navarretta, switches back to vivid
color for the vivid-color memories
of Luis Garcia (Louis Gossett Jr.),
a once-famous Cuban musician,
now suffering from Alzheimer’s
disease and hobbled by anti-
psychotic drugs in that nursing
home, in Ontario, Canada. The
muting is a dramatic device, like
Otto Preminger’s shifting from a
black-and-white present to a
full-color past in “Bonjour
Tristesse.” But Navarretta is
considerably less adept than
Preminger.
Helping elicit Luis’s memories
is Mina (Ana Golja), a pre-med
student working at the nursing
home, where her Aunt Bano
(Shohreh Aghdashloo) is an
administrator. Mina brings Luis
food from his homeland, and sings
to him. A fellow she meets on a
double date with her cousin turns
out to be a psych major working
on a thesis about memory. It’s a
bit like watching wooden ducks
go down at a fairground shooting
game, honestly. This fellow brings
Luis a guitar.
It isn’t Lauren Holly’s rules-
compliant Nurse Baker who first
tries to shut Mina down, but
Mina’s aunt. And there are furthercomplications, one troubling one
being that Luis equates Mina with
his lost love, Elena. Complications
culminate in epiphanies and brief
triumphs, as is customary. But
this genial, well-intentioned mov-
ie never quite lands a real emo-
tional punch.
GLENN KENNYTHE CUBAN
Not rated. Running time: 1 hour 49
minutes. Watch through virtual
cinemas: watch.eventive.org.
. ...................................................................
It’s significant that “A Girl Miss-
ing,” Koji Fukada’s shape-shifting
vengeance drama, begins with a
visit to a hair salon and a discus-
sion of faces and familiarity. Be-
cause only by paying close atten-
tion to the lead character’s chang-
ing hairstyle and wardrobe can
we follow the story’s convoluted
crescendo of thwarted passion
and unadulterated rage.
There’s something a little shady
about Risa (Mariko Tsutsui), thecoolly collected woman who seeks
out Kazumichi (Sosuke Ikematsu)
for a change of hair color and
more. As we will learn, Risa was
once known as Ichiko, a warmly
competent nurse with a fiancé
and a stable position caring for
the grandmother in a friendly
family. A shocking crime, a care-
less anecdote and a bad decision
will leave Ichiko’s career and
personal life in tatters, giving
birth to a dangerous alter ego
bent only on retaliation.
Ignited by a kidnapping that’s
no more than a device, the mad-
deningly complicated plot —
bubbling with revenge sexting
and lesbian longing — unfolds in
parallel timelines that slide back
and forth without warning or
notation. (In the movie’s sole stab
at humor, the timelines briefly
collide at a zoo as both versions of
the lead character contemplate an
especially well-endowed rhinocer-
os.) As he proved in his 2017
drama, “Harmonium,” Fukada
excels at unfurling near-hysteri-
cal narratives in restrained,
sometimes icily sterile scenes.
But while the earlier film pulled
us in, this one repels, its cloudy
colors and depressing mood
making us long for a single mo-
ment of joy.
Instead, Risa’s bifurcated per-
sonality — unhinged stalker and
kindly caregiver, perpetrator and
victim — is depicted with relent-
less severity. What’s missing here
is one living, breathing woman.
JEANNETTE CATSOULISA GIRL MISSING
Not rated. In Japanese, with
subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 51
minutes. Watch through virtual
cinemas: filmmovement.com.. ...................................................................
A thumb to suck in troubled times,
“Summerland” offers a digit of
nostalgia that many viewers will
latch onto with something ap-
proaching relief.
Set mainly during World War II,
this picturesque debut feature
from Jessica Swale is as uninter-
ested in international conflict as
Alice (Gemma Arterton), its
distracted heroine. We find her in
her shabby-chic cottage on the
Kentish coast, a crabby author
who — the film pointedly stresses
— deeply dislikes children. She’s
not at all happy, then, to be lum-
bered with Frank (Lucas Bond), a
sweet-natured schoolboy evacuat-
ed from London. I think we can all
see where this is going.
Getting there, though, will
require frustratingly timid flash-
backs to an interracial, same-sex
relationship (featuring a woefully
underemployed Gugu Mbatha-
Raw) and airy-fairy conversationson the cultural mythologies that
Alice studies. These fancies, and
their role in building a bridge
between Alice and Frank, are far
more central to the child-friendly
narrative than either forbidden
love or the gender stereotyping
rejected by Frank’s pal, Edie
(Dixie Egerickx), a spiky tomboy.
“I’m a maverick,” Edie ex-
plains; but Swale is too busy
wholesomely sewing up every
problem to care. Warm and soft
and benignly manipulative — the
movie’s sole death is scandalously
opportune — “Summerland”
brims with genteel sentiment and
British briskness. Arterton is a
wonderful actress, when not
constrained by picture-book
settings and prickly-spinster
clichés. And an ending so con-
trived it will blow your mind.
JEANNETTE CATSOULISSUMMERLAND
Rated PG for a chaste kiss and
free-spirited smoking. Running time:
1 hour 39 minutes. Rent or buy on
Google Play and Vudu and other
streaming platforms and pay-TV
operators.. ...................................................................
The new Netflix animated film
“Latte and the Magic Water-
stone,” the latest entry in a long,
distinguished tradition of cuteanimals embarking on perilous
Odyssean quests, serves up some
sweetness but otherwise keeps its
laughs mild and its themes un-
imaginatively simple.
Based on a children’s book by
Sebastian Lybeck, and directed
by Regina Welker and Nina Wels,
the movie is about an impetuous,
grouchy hedgehog named Latte
and her anxious squirrel friend,
Tjum, who journey to reclaim a
magic stone stolen by a bear king.
The script, by Andrea Deppert
and Martin Behnke, offers little
by way of surprises, and the few
idiosyncratic details (say, an
eccentric, seemingly psychic frog
and a sleuth of dancing, water-
ballet-performing bears) aren’t
exploited for their full comedic
effect. The C.G.I. animation is
generally too slick and oversatu-
rated, though scenes when the
film shoots for a mystical quality,
with phosphorescent pink flowers
and radiant, electric-blue crystals,
are satisfying eye candy.
A hungry lynx, shifty wolves,
rocky gulfs and rugged terrain:
You can fill in the details on your
own. But beneath the rote narra-
tive, there’s a whiff of a note
about class and society: the small
woodland creatures struggling to
survive while the royal bears,
enjoying their place at the top of
the food chain, lavish in their
bounty in a majestic castle. And
there’s the loner hedgehog, learn-
ing the value of community, rally-
ing for a redistribution of re-
sources for the benefit of all. Has
the magic stone perhaps brought
not just water but a lesson on the
values of socialism?
Nah. “Latte” doesn’t want to
scare off the tykes with too much
big-kid politics, even though films
like “Wall-E” and “Zootopia” have
proved that more nuanced stories
about society can work even in
children’s films. It’s too bad too —
Latte was looking a bit revolution-
ary, and a lot more fun, for a
second.
MAYA PHILLIPSLATTE AND THE
MAGIC WATERSTONE
Not rated. In German and English,
with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour
29 minutes. On Netflix.. ...................................................................
A hedgehog and her squirrel friend head out for adventure.NETFLIXOver a hip-hop beat, the rapper-
turned-actor Common narrates “A
Most Beautiful Thing” in an ex-
hilarating, mythical tone. The
men at the center of this Mary
Mazzio documentary deserve
such treatment: In the 1990s, they
formed the nation’s first all-Black
high school rowing team while
growing up on Chicago’s West
Side, where gang violence was
prevalent.
Dynamic camera movements
make the film come to life amid
more conventional choices, as
Mazzio tracks the rowers from
their harrowing upbringing to
their entrance into a white-domi-
nated sport. In talking-head inter-
views, teammates including the
captain, Arshay Cooper (whose
memoir the film is based on),
recall getting into rowing because
they were offered free pizza at the
first meeting. But they somberly
articulate why the sport became a
saving grace: Out on the water,
they were away from the neigh-
borhood’s barrage of gunshots
and sirens.
The film’s fast-paced editing
makes it difficult to get to know
individual members, but the men
register powerfully as a col-
lective, just like a real rowing
team. These interviews are funny
and poignant, as the rowers dis-
cuss complex relationships with
one another and with their white
coaches, who helped turn the
rowers’ lives around.
The latter half of “A Most Beau-
tiful Thing” follows the rowers as
they convene for their 20-year
team reunion, training to get back
on the water in hopes of inspiring
future generations of Black kids.
The documentary tries to be an
uplifting balm during times of
racial unrest. But it fails to avoid
thorny territory when the team
agrees to form an alliance with
white police officers.
KRISTEN YOONSOO KIM
A MOST BEAUTIFUL
THING
Not rated. Running time: 1 hour 35
minutes. Watch on Xfinity On
Demand.
. ...................................................................
Malcolm Hawkins, center, and Arshay Cooper, right, in the documentary “A Most Beautiful Thing.”CLAYTON HAUCK/50 EGGS FILMSBD