On one occasion in the free wheel Music documentary “Swamp Dogg gets his pool painted“The eccentric 82-year-old musician is asked to describe his philosophy of life.” Just be cool, do you know? “, Says Swamp Dogg.” And it’s fun to be yourself. It’s funny as a mom. But you have to find yourself. ”
It is a suitable summary of a creative life that lived exactly on his own terms. A cult figure in some music circles, Jerry Williams Jr. Step to prominence in the 70s for their satirical southern soul boards that were equally likely to contain radical political messages or covers art by Williams in a sausage bun covered in ketchup and mustard. He adopted Swamp Dogg Moniker to separate his public persona from his previous career as a Muscle Shoals producer who lost gold records for other artists, although he continued to be a force in the music industry as a record company founder and producer that supported Dr. Dre’s first discs. And he continues to renew himself in the eighties and experiment with Autotune Banjo music from his home studio and tour regularly.
But in Isaac Gale and Ryan Olson’s new documentary, Swamp Dogg’s life of performance takes a back seat to a more pressing question: to have their pool painted. At an unspecified place in the San Fernando Valley, Swamp Dogg lives in a suburb’s enclave of creativity. His house is filled with loving freelasters, mainly musician friends like guitar Shorty, who asked to crash with him at one point and stopped staying for decades. The house is a legacy for jam sessions and grills, but Swamp Dogg thinks there is a thing missing. He wants a picture of himself who rides on a rodent painted on the bottom of his pool so that it can be seen from heaven.
“Swamp Dogg gets his pool painted” starts with Swamp Dogg letting the pool painter into his garden, but it quickly turns into a spreading hang session with his house mates, neighbors as voice actor Tomy and his daughter. Swamp Dogg is reminiscent of his individual career, which eventually gives way to some mandatory archive films, but film Am just as interested in celebrating the zest for life that the Octogenar is currently enjoy. The result is a documentary that is as charming offbeat as its subject, whose greatest works of art can be the ridiculously funny existence he seems to live out daily.
Music documentaries Has almost annoying generally generally in recent years, but “Swamp Dogg gets his pool painted” is a refreshing rate that should delight even the most genre-fatigued viewer. The film never gets too serious, and Pauer happily in the middle of the interval to show Swamp Dogg who responds to his phone and tells politely to tell someone that he has to call them back because he is in the middle of shooting a documentary. It really benefits from the fact that its subject will be unknown to many viewers, who liberate the filmmakers from the expectation of a hagiographical journey down the memory field and allow them to focus on what interests their subject at a given moment.
Of course, the approach is only possible because the man who gets his pool painted is so damn charismatic. At 82-year-old, Swamp does not see a day over 60, and he boasts a knife-sharp mind and an infectious appetite for all the strange pleasures of life. Looking at him winds through his garden, talking shit with his friends, exploring new sounds and dry calling all the problems for a “mother fucker” is the kind of offbeat joy that I would like to have seen for another three hours. Seeing his excitement that a manufacturer has revived the lost art of writing profane messages on socks or proudly showing his daughter that his glittering new shoes are more interesting than anything in his recording career, and Gale and Olson lean back and let the current Swamp Dog Dog Dog up the limelight.
More than any individual song or album tries the movie to encapsulate Swamp Dogg Vibe. Simply cool, proud to be alive and mildly maintained by almost everything, the man offers what seems to be the perfect plan to stay in 2025. We can’t all be Swamp Dogg, but it’s nice to know that the world still contains heroes worth looking up to. I certainly hope he likes his new pool.
Rating: B+
A Magnolia Pictures edition, “Swamp Dogg gets its pool painted” opens in selected theaters on Friday 2 May.
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