Memphis movie news; Jerry Lee Lewis, Samuel L. Jackson, Tav Falco & more

In the paragraphs below you will encounter Mick Jagger, Muhammad Ali and the Man from Atlantis.

Not the names you might expect from a column of Memphis movie news. But here they are. So please read on.

'Jerry Lee Lewis: Trouble in Mind'

"Jerry Lee Lewis: Trouble in Mind," a documentary directed by Ethan Coen, one half of the famous Coen Brothers filmmaking duo, is now streaming on Amazon Prime.

The movie was made available on the service last week with absolutely no fanfare or hype, an odd decision considering the current popularity of music documentaries; the legendary, even infamous status of its rock 'n' roll subject; the stature of Ethan Coen, making his solo directorial debut after a career alongside his brother, Joel, that yielded such classics as "Fargo," "The Big Lebowski" and "No Country for Old Men," which won the Best Picture Academy Award in 2008; the star power of its producers, who include Mick Jagger and the late millionaire Steve Bing; and the eminence of its distributor, A24, the hit/cult movie company behind such films as "The Witch," "Priscilla," "Amy" and the Best Picture winners "Moonlight" and "Everything Everywhere All at Once."

Bing, who died in 2020, had been a key backer of Lewis' late career comeback, and he, Jagger and music author/scholar Peter Guralnick had met with Lewis in Memphis to discuss the film and other projects. Lewis, a piano-pounding force-of-nature performer whose hits, including "Great Balls of Fire," made him second only to Elvis Presley as a Sun Records hit-maker, died in 2022 at 87.

Loaded with Memphis content and references, the 74-minute "Trouble in Mind" debuted at the Cannes Film Festival in 2022, but received no theatrical release. Unlike conventional music documentaries that feature contextualizing commentary from critics and peers, the film was constructed by Coen and veteran Coen Brothers editor Tricia Cooke almost entirely from interview and performance footage, including long takes from such programs as "The Ed Sullivan Show" and "Shindig!" The result is a mosaic portrait that showcases Lewis' talent but does not explicitly attempt to diagnose his demons or crack the enigma of his personality.

This approach apparently underwhelmed some critics. As of Feb. 14, only 17 reviews for "Trouble in Mind" were on the Rotten Tomatoes website, five of which are negative. (In contrast, the Coen Brothers' last collaboration, 2018's "The Ballad of Buster Scruggs," which also debuted on a streaming service, has been reviewed by 237 critics.) Few media outlets made note of the documentary's arrival on Prime, and the movie has yet to be reviewed by The New York Times. However, popular writer/musician/cultural commentator Elizabeth Nelson last week posted a mini-review on X (formerly Twitter), characterizing the documentary as being "one part musical, one part horror pic." Her verdict: "Masterwork."

Ethan Coen's next movie, "Drive-Away Dolls," a more traditionally Coen-esque comedy that appears to be in the antic tradition of the Brothers' "Raising Arizona" and "Burn After Reading," opens Feb. 23.

'Fight Night: The Million Dollar Heist'

Memphis filmmaker Craig Brewer is now in Atlanta, deep into production of his new project, "Fight Night: The Million Dollar Heist."

Set to debut on NBCUniversal's Peacock streaming service, the eight-episode series will showcase an all-star cast that reunites Brewer with his "Hustle & Flow" stars, Terrence Howard and Taraji P. Henson (they also worked together on the Fox network series, "Empire"), and his "Black Snake Moan" star, Samuel L. Jackson. As Memphis film aficionado Zack Parks wrote on X: "This show is quickly becoming the Brewerverse and I am... here for it."

With Brewer (who will direct the first two episodes), veteran filmmaker Will Packer and actor Kevin Hart among its executive producers, the series dramatizes an infamous armed robbery that occurred in Atlanta after Muhammad Ali's 1970 comeback boxing match against Jerry Quarry, as well as the crime's violent aftermath.

Much of the focus will be on the cat-and-mouse relationship between robbery ringleader Gordon "Chicken Man" Williams, played by Hart, and J.D. Hudson, the chief investigating detective, who will be played by Don Cheadle.

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In addition to Jackson, Henson and Howard (who will play gangster Richard "Cadillac" Wheeler), the cast includes Dexter Darden — known for his work in the "Maze Runner" trilogy — as Muhammad Ali.

The limited series likely will premiere in 2025, but a debut date has not been set.

MidSouth Nostalgia Festival

Patrick Duffy, an actor equally at home in the undersea civilization of Atlantis and the oil-rich environment of Dallas, will be a guest at this year's edition of the MidSouth Nostalgia Festival, set for June 6-8 at the Whispering Woods Hotel and Conference Center in Olive Branch.

Duffy — who starred as the web-fingered title hero in the 1977 NBC science-fiction series "Man from Atlantis" and as Bobby Ewing from the 1970s through the 1990s on the smash ABC drama "Dallas" — will be joined by such other festival guests as Don Most ("Ralph Malph" on "Happy Days"); Greg Evigan ("B.J. and the Bear"); Linda Purl ("The Office," "Matlock"); Mitch Vogel ("Bonanza," "The Reivers"); Darby Hinton ("Daniel Boone"); Patrick (son of John) Wayne ("Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger"); and producer Wyatt (son of Joel) McCrea, to name a few.

The Memphis area's longest-running film-and-TV-related event, the festival began in 1972, when it primarily was devoted to B-Westerns. Through the decades it expanded its focus but has continued to showcase stars from past movie and television eras in panel discussions and autograph sessions, while also presenting marathon screenings of classic cinema and hosting a "dealers room" filled with movie memorabilia for sale.

For tickets and more information, visit midsouthnostalgiafestival.com.

Tav Falco's 'The Urania Trilogy'

Arkansas expat turned European auteur, the irrepressible Tav Falco — whose self-described "art-damaged" musical "conjurations" provided the foundation for a vital era of blues-steeped and punk-simpatico Memphis rock 'n' roll — returns to his former Bluff City environment on Thursday to screen his original film cycle, "The Urania Trilogy," at 7 p.m. at the Malco Studio on the Square.

Currently cutting a new record at the Sam Phillips Recording Studio on Madison, Falco is writer, director and star of the "Trilogy," a silent cinema-influenced "film poem" (Falco's term) shot largely in Vienna, another city where the leader of the Panther Burns band has spent much of his time. (He now lives in Bangkok, he says.) A tale of criminal and existential intrigue, the project represents what genius Canadian filmmaker Guy Maddin calls "another scintillating-yet-grimy jewel in the carbuncled tortoise shell career of the prolific swampwater decadent, Tav Falco." Or, to quote Falco: "The film flickers with the fateful caprice of tarot cards fingered in a Viennese bordello."

Falco will be present to introduce and answer questions about "Urania." The singer comes to Memphis after having been one of the featured performers on this month's SiriusXM-connected "Outlaw Country Cruise," a Caribbean excursion that also featured Lucinda Williams, Steve Earle, Rosie Flores and others, including the rabble-rousing friend-to-Memphis Mojo Nixon, 66, who died of a heart attack during the cruise, on Feb. 7; in fact, Nixon had been scheduled to host a shipboard screening of "Urania" with Falco the next day. (Incidentally, both Falco and Nixon appeared as band members in the 1989 Jerry Lee Lewis biopic "Great Balls of Fire!," with Nixon cast as Lewis' Sun-era drummer, J.M. Van Eaton, who died two days after Nixon, at age 86.)

The screening is hosted by Indie Memphis. Admission is $12. Visit indiememphis.org.

'Bobi Wine: The People's President' + 'Perfect Days'

Indie Memphis is hosting one-night-only screenings of two of this year's Academy Award-nominated feature films. Tickets are $12 each.

Directed by Christopher Sharp and Moses Bwayo, "Bobi Wine: The People's President" screens at 7 p.m. Feb. 21 at the Malco Studio on the Square. In competition for the Oscar for Best Feature Documentary, the film follows the 2021 Uganda presidential campaign of popular singer Bobi Wine, who was seeking to defeat the longtime incumbent, authoritarian former revolutionary Yoweri Museveni, who has been president since 1986.

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"Perfect Days," the new movie from acclaimed German director Wim Wenders, screens at 7 p.m. Feb. 28 at the Studio. Nominated for the Best International Feature Academy Award, the film stars Koji Yakusho ("Shall We Dance?") as a professional cleaner of the strikingly designed public toilet stalls that are unique to Tokyo. The movie has been described as "sublime" (the Los Angeles Times) and "an earthshaking character study that reminds us why we go to the movies in the first place" (Rolling Stone).

Also, in what has become an annual event, the Malco Ridgeway will host anthology screenings of the nominees in the categories of Documentary Short Film, Animated Short Film and Live Action Short Film. The screenings start Friday, Feb. 16, and showtimes vary throughout the week. Regular admission prices apply.

'A Riverfront for Everyone'

"A Riverfront for Everyone," a 25-minute documentary about the remaking of Tom Lee Park will debut during "This Is Memphis," an event described as a fundraising "celebration" of the park and the Memphis River Parks Partnership, which managed the redesign of the riverfront property.

The film is produced and directed by the team of Molly Wexler, a longtime supporter of local film; veteran filmmaker Matteo Servente (also founder of the Zio Matto Gelato dessert company); and Indie Memphis managing director Joseph Carr, also an experienced filmmaker. The team previously created "The Little Tea Shop," a 2020 documentary about the historic Downtown restaurant that aired on WKNO-TV Channel 10.

Presented by the Valero Memphis Refinery, the "This Is Memphis" event — which will include a silent auction, music, Memphis "bites" and drinks, and more — begins at 6:30 p.m. Friday, Feb. 16, at the Halloran Centre, adjacent to the Orpheum on Main Street. Tickets begin at $55.

'Popular Theory'

Memphis actress Kat Conner Sterling, 27, has a key supporting role in "Popular Theory," a PG-rated comedy that opened locall at the Malco Cordova Cinema (an appropriate venue, for a movie featuring the former Cordova resident).

The movie, which features Cheryl Hines and Marc Evan Jackson, is about a 12-year-old outcast genius (Sophia Reid-Gantzer) who invents a "popularity" chemical that can be added to sticks of chewing gum.

Sterling has had a varied career of late. She gained attention with a featured comic sidekick role in the Netflix Christian summer-camp teen musical, "A Week Away," but may have been seen by even more people in the recent shocker, "Five Nights at Freddy's," in which she plays a babysitter (not a safe profession, in a horror context). Produced by the prolific Blumhouse horror-media company, "Freddy's" earned $292 million at the world box office in late 2023.

This article originally appeared on Memphis Commercial Appeal: Memphis movie news: New releases, special screenings & more