FOREMOST OF THE MOHICANS

          A quarter-century later, and still definitive.

          Michael Mann had an unlikely skill-set to direct the premiere version of the frontier romance etched on the national character. He had directed an episode of "Police Woman" and Manhunter (1986), the first film to feature that other great American literary hero, Hannibal Lecter. 

          To play Hawk-eye (a character inspired by real-life frontier hero Daniel Boone), Mann enlisted Daniel Day-Lewis, famous at that time for the artistic commitment he demonstrated in My Left Foot (1989). In that film, Day-Lewis convincingly portrayed Christy Brown, a spastic quadriplegic who became a painter, poet, and author. Mann's film required the same level of dedication with an essentially antithetical character.

          Prior to the making of Mann's vision, several other versions of James Fenimore Cooper's most famous tale dotted the cinematic landscape: A version in 1920 with Wallace Beery, one in 1936 with Randolph Scott, a BBC TV series in 1971, a 1977 incarnation with Steve Forrest. 

          For Mann's 1992 masterpiece, painstaking detail girds the film to a degree unique in movie history. The clothing, the weapons, the tools--according to a featurette which preceded the film in original videocassette release, even the canoes used in The Last of the Mohicans were constructed using traditional methods. 

          A Special Forces colonel at a survival training camp in Alabama was tasked with taking Day-Lewis, an English actor and son of a poet who had never fired weapons, and turn him into a person who could convincingly do the things required of his character. Such as load a black powder rifle on the run. 

          For those unfamiliar with the story, Chingachgook (Means), his son Uncas (Schweig), and his adopted son Hawk-eye help rescue the kidnapped daughters of a British colonel during the French and Indian War.

          As the treacherous scout, Magua, Wes Studi is perfectly cast. From the first moments that we see him wrapped quietly in the shadows, we know this guy has his own agenda.

          And he's not the only one. Steven Waddington plays a memorable suitor to the generally uninterested Cora Munro (Stowe), who also captures the attention of Hawk-eye. 

          Featuring unforgettable music and jaw-dropping cinematography, The Last of the Mohicans is a rousing action-packed adventure like no other. 

THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS

Starring Daniel Day-Lewis,

Madeleine Stowe, 

Russell Means,

Eric Schweig,

Jodhi May,

Steven Waddington,

Wes Studi

Directed by Michael Mann

Written by Michael Mann, Christopher Crowe

Based on the novel by James Fenimore Cooper

Runtime 112 minutes

Rated R

Stewart Kirby writes for

"STRANGE TRIP" HIGH-QUALITY

          One of the best bands ever formed now has one of the best documentaries ever made.
          Long Strange Trip, the Grateful Dead story, features never-before-seen footage from prime Dead years, new interviews with band members, family, and crew, and fascinating insights on the group's driving force, Jerry Garcia.
          The nearly four-hour experience available online consists of six episodes of varying length and a bonus feature, beginning with Act I - "It's Alive" which starts with Jerry talking about how as a kid the Frankenstein monster used to scare him. For him, Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948) was a transformative experience because he saw that scary things, weird things, were fun.
          Sometime in his teens Jerry heard the 5-string banjo of Earl Skruggs and it changed his life. He spent all his time practicing "conversational music" where "the instruments kind of talk to each other."
          Around this time Jerry met a fellow singer and musician Ron "Pigpen" McKernan, and then they met another, Bob Weir. Jerry decided that as much as he loved banjo, he needed to unlearn everything and pick up an electric guitar. Phil Lesh, Bill Kreutzmann, and Mickey Hart rounded out a band composed of members fusing diverse styles. And they happened to have a genius lyricist in one Robert Hunter.
          Also at this time Ken Kesey, author of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, was tooling around by bus with a bunch of friends calling themselves the Merry Pranksters and experimenting on their own with a strange new drug which the government was investigating as potential for a weapon. So the band made friends with him right away.
          The film manages to present the psychedelic phenomenon wholeheartedly embraced by the Grateful Dead at the time without either glorifying or condemning. We simply see what happened.
          More than any other band, the Dead represent the freewheeling spirit of the '60s. Many people changed their lives from whatever they were doing to follow the Dead and form a psychedelic carnival wherever they go. They are called Deadheads. No Rolling Stonesheads. No Whoheads. Just Deadheads.
          Interestingly, it is a hallmark of the band that they saw no difference between themselves and their fans. Yet somehow, out of all the chaos, they made it big on their own terms. All they really wanted to do was escape mind-numbing conformity and survive by playing music. True, the band also aspired to advance the human race a step by finding joy in the present through the freedom of self-expression and getting loaded. But when the groovy Hippie scene in the Haight-Ashbury area of San Francisco turned into tour buses carting uptight straights pointing with horn-rim glasses, cameras, and brochures, the Hippies glanced aghast and politely headed north.
          Long Strange Trip is a magic carpet ride to that time. A fascinating documentary about more than only one band, it's a trip so well worth taking, it might just change your life.


LONG STRANGE TRIP
Starring Jerry Garcia,
Phil Lesh,
Bob Weir,
Ron McKernan,
Bill Kreutzmann,
Mickey Hart,
Robert Hunter,
Donna Godchaux
Directed by Amir Bar-Lev
Runtime 238 minutes
Rated R




Stewart Kirby writes for