One of the worst movies I've ever seen

everything you have heard about this movie is true.

How wonderful it is to see this fine actress carry a film and carry it so beautifully.

It is not only a funny movie, but it allows a great amount of joy for anyone who watches it.

I saw this with some friends at the Nuart theatre last night. This doc did have the poignancy that its subject would be dead before it first came out in 1988. Fifty-seven, he could had passed for seventy-seven, the way his skin dried up from all that substance abuse.A fan of jazz, I never had anything of Chet Baker and still hold the opinion that Miles Davis was the premiere trumpeter of the time period. But Baker was listen-able and could be quite good when the mood striked.But he was no good as a family man as his actual family points out. A photographer shows the many pictures he took of him saying he was so photogenic which just struck me as weird.More intriguing was all the photos Baker took of naked women, proof that he was quite a ladies man. One buxom brunette, never really introduced, is one of the hangers on in what would be the last year of his life.I'm not complaining because I adore the young Natalie Wood, but other than Robert Wagner playing a Baker character in 1959, not much reason to show so much of it. Also, a lot of fun was the celebrity pictures taken in the 1950's, trying to figure out who's who, such as Marlene Dietrich, Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton in shots.Speaking of snap notes, we're supposed to Baker's baby book and pictures and photographs of him standing next to the Bird, Charley Parker.But it's bittersweet and does serve its purpose, a rare look of Chet Baker as an individual not living up to his initial promise.

I remember seeing and loving this movie when it played at Film Forum in NYC back in the late 80's. It was recently re-released for a limited engagement so I took my wife to see it (again, at Film Forum). Almost twenty years later, it's just as beautiful and heartbreaking to watch. The brilliance of this movie is that you don't have to be jazz or Chet Baker fan to enjoy it -- my wife and I have a marginal interest in jazz and we loved it. It's a brilliant portrayal of how talent, youth and beauty are destroyed by excess, and you'll feel both awe and pity for the late Mr. Baker. DVD is supposed to come out at the end of the year -- rent it, you won't be sorry.

We have to be grateful to Bruce Weber for giving us this film. Monetary gain could not have figured in on it, as jazz, in spite of the great artists it produces, could never attract the amount of people to make a venture like this profitable. The big bands of the thirties and forties had jazz musicians as members, and did incorporate some jazz solos in their arrangements, but could not be considered a jazz venue. They generated millions of dollars, because the dancing public was so vast, there was no TV, and the leaders were groomed to be lionised like movie stars. (See "The Trouble With Cinderella", Artie Shaw's autobiography on his disenchatment with stardom. Jazz was played in small clubs seating at the most two hundred people, while dance halls could accommodate as much as fifteen hundred dancers. Any footage of an important icon like Chet is welcome, but some scenes are not what they seem. The recording session is a staged event to simulate a record date. The opening scene on the beach sans Chet is gatutitous. Maybe Weber wanted to show the local Southern California beach scene that Chet loved. The scene in an amusement park with a stoned Chet on the "Dodgem" cars is puzzling. "Chet's women" add a great deal of interest to the film. His mother describes how the toddler Chet was transfixed by the sound of the big bands on the radio. Ruth Young daughter of a wealthy Hollywood producer, smitten with Chet and jazz, describes with an unusual lack of bitterness, the insane life of loving a junky, who was really in love with her inheritance and heroin, and made short shrift of her money to finance his drug taking. She sings briefly in the film and I thought showed great promise, but she failed to seek a career in music. Diane Vavra had no money for Chet to squander, but she filled in as someone knowledgable about music to help Chet. Carol Baker, "the long suffering wife" (and how she suffered) gave Chet three beautiful children, who Chet barely noticed, or provided for in his chaotic race to the grave. With all that said, what about the music? Well I can tell you that in an era of great heroic trumpet superstars, like Dizzy Gillespie, Roy Eldridge, Maynard Ferguson, and many others, who could dazzle you with notes in the highest register of the trumpet, and improvise incredible melodies in the upper register, and "scream" above a roaring fifteen piece band, Chet was not in that mode at all. He rarely practiced, had no high register, but wove a soft filagree of delightful improvisations on standard popular songs. In my opinion he reinvented trumpet playing in the fifties. His playing said, "Dizzy's great, but I do it this way." His movie star looks did not hurt his appeal one bit, and his singing which has many detracters, I think will prove to be more appreciated in years to come. I loved every note he played and sang when I first heard him in the fifties, and my appreciation and love for this man, grows every year.

See this film. Amazing to see how destructive genius can be. The film looks great, outstanding sound-track, great editing. I'm not really a jazz fan, but I loved watching and seeing this movie. It's going to be re-released this year.