{"id":4567,"date":"2013-02-02T06:16:57","date_gmt":"2013-02-02T14:16:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.cinemastance.com\/?p=4567"},"modified":"2013-02-02T06:16:57","modified_gmt":"2013-02-02T14:16:57","slug":"paul-williams-still-alive-available-on-blu-raydvd-february-5th","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/?p=4567","title":{"rendered":"PAUL WILLIAMS STILL ALIVE Available on Blu-ray\/DVD February 5th"},"content":{"rendered":"

Paul Williams Still Alive is available on Blu-ray\/DVD February 5th 2013<\/strong><\/h2>\n

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\n Now that we have established that Paul Williams is not deceased I feel that it is probably important to let you know who<\/em> Paul Williams is before we move on.<\/strong><\/p>\n

I was born in 1975, right at the height of Williams\u2019s popularity, and I\u2019ve barely any memories of the actual man. But I have always been a fan because of a few projects in which he was an integral part:<\/strong><\/p>\n

1. Mr. Williams wrote the music and lyrics for every song in \u201cThe Muppet Movie\u201d including the timeless classic \u201cRainbow Connection\u201d (the song I currently dance my daughter to sleep to nearly every night).<\/strong>
\n 2. Mr. Williams wrote the music and lyrics for two of the most bizarre musicals in cinema history, \u201cBugsy Malone\u201d and \u201cPhantom of the Paradise\u201d. \u201cParadise\u201d is an extremely dated cult film directed by Brian DePalma in which a disfigured composer haunts a glam-rock concert hall while \u201cBugsy Malone\u201d is a comedy\/musical revolving around mafia types during the Prohibition- starring nothing but kids (Including Scott Baio and Jodie Foster!). Wonderfully crazy stuff!!<\/strong><\/p>\n

Luckily for us, director Stephen Kessler is a huge fan as well and decided to just pick up a camera and start following Williams around out of pure hero worship. Kessler is an established commercial director whose main claim fame(-ish) is that he directed \u201cVegas Vacation\u201d (or as I like to call it \u201cVacation Part 4: The Real Bad One that Makes \u201cEuropean Vacation\u201d look like \u201cLast Tango in Paris\u201d).<\/strong><\/p>\n

Kessler begins his doc presenting his love for Williams and then simply goes to a screening of \u201cPhantom of the Paradise\u201d in Winnipeg and asks the former superstar if he can make a movie about him. Simple. The preconceived idea is that someone this long out of the limelight would jump at the chance to get in front of the cameras again but Williams is actually one of the most reluctant subjects I\u2019ve ever seen and much of the film\u2019s success comes from this hesitation as Williams keeps the cameras at arm\u2019s length through much of the movie. Interviews are clunky as questions are just ignored and participation is refused. Paul Williams does not need<\/em> the attention, making him a Hollywood Miracle.<\/strong>
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\n But the relationship between Kessler and Williams grows as time progresses and it is that friendship that becomes the main focus and the documenter becomes, in part, the documented. The two bond over their love for fried squid, of all things, and slowly Williams opens up. It is then we see a fascinating human who had all the fame he could handle back in his heyday. Williams not only created the quirky material that I gravitated towards but wrote hit songs for The Carpenters, Barbara Streisand and Neil Diamond. He even managed to win and Academy Award! But then he lost focus on his music became a Professional Celebrity; appearing in any and all that would have him including episodes of \u201cHawaii Five-O,\u201d \u201cThe Love Boat\u201d and \u201cCircus of the Stars\u201d. The need for attention consumed him and his consumption of copious amount of drugs did nothing but accelerate his fade into obscurity.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Here we meet the modern day Williams, sober for decades and at peace with himself. Because the film\u2019s maker breaks through the reluctant exterior of the composer, \u201cPaul Williams Still Alive\u201d introduces us to Paul directly and you walk away from the film with the feeling that you now know and understand him on a personal level. The fact that he is still alive is cause to celebrate.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Bonus Material is sparse here:<\/strong>
\n Paul singing 5 Songs in Concert<\/strong>
\n That\u2019s right, I call him Paul now.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Paul Williams Still Alive is available on Blu-ray\/DVD February 5th 2013 Now that we have established that Paul Williams is not deceased I feel that it is probably important to let you know who Paul Williams is before we move on. I was born in 1975, right at the height of Williams\u2019s popularity, and I\u2019ve […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":4570,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[15849,15850,19050,20234,21657],"class_list":["post-4567","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-dvdblu-ray-reviews","tag-paul-williams","tag-paul-williams-still-alive","tag-stephen-kessler","tag-the-carpenters","tag-the-muppets"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4567","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4567"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4567\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4567"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4567"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4567"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}