By Bob Lee
Repost from the LA Beat on Feb. 19.
In "The Secret Lives Of Bill Bartell," filmmaker Dave Markey takes an in-depth look at a character who populated his earliest films, the leader of deeply sincere punk satirists White Flag, and his co-conspirator in the Tater Totz, who traumatized Beatlefest '88 by performing a screeching cover of "Don't Worry Kyoko" in the middle of a bunch of poncy mop-top clone bands. I actually remember hearing the Tater Totz when I first moved to LA in 1988, with no knowledge that it was made up of members of Redd Kross, The Germs, Markey's girl band muses The Lovedolls, Bartell himself and even former teen idol Jimmy McNichol.
If that sounds like a brain twister of a supergroup, strap in, because Bill Bartell was a guy whose life took some unexpected twists and turns. A lack of familiarity with the discography of White Flag will be no deterrent to enjoying the movie -- as with the heartwarming "Anvil!: The Story of Anvil," the most interesting thing on display is this can-do attitude of the title character, seeing it displayed in all kinds of unexpected ways.
But it's not just a punk movie or even just a music movie. As one of his co-conspirators points out in the film, Bill had so many different circles of people in his life that it was impossible to keep track, and while some people were in two or three of his same circles, nobody was in all of them. There was a part of him even the people who felt close to him, knew they didn't know about.
As the film progresses, there's an increasing sense of this overachieving misfit who would do these extreme things just to do them, say he did them and blow peoples' minds. There's a punk rock Andy Kaufman vibe about him, that he might come up to you and say he had just become... I don't know, a Kremlin agent or a UFO pilot or a professional wrestler, wait for you to say "no way" and then show you the pictures, just to watch you stare at them open-mouthed. Without giving too much away, let's say the images of Bill and his bovine friends towards the end of the picture are some of the most striking images you will see in the cinema this year.
This is America, right? You can be anything you want to be? You may conclude after this film that Bill Bartell took that idea further than a lot of his fellow Americans. For those who have followed Markey's work, this is not to be missed, his best film yet by a mile.
"The Secret Lives of Bill Bartell" will premiere at Slamdance LA at 1:45 p.m. on Feb. 22 at Summer & David Theater at Quixote (individual tickets currently showing sold out).
It will screen again at 1:45 p.m. on Feb. 24 at Panasonic LUMIX Theater at Quixote in West Hollywood. Visit the website for tickets to the Monday screening. Both screenings will be followed by a Q&A.
The film will also be streaming on the Slamdance website from Feb. 24 through March 6 through a $50 all-festival Slamdance Channel streaming pass.
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