PROFILES

Craig Brewer

His music: Although he’s a filmmaker by trade, Craig Brewer, 38, is well versed in the legends and lore of Memphis’ music scene. His debut independent feature “The Poor & Hungry,” a winner at the 2000 Hollywood Film Festival, was a story about a stolen cello and had a soundtrack chock full of local acts. “Hustle & Flow,” released five years later, resulted in an Academy Award for Three 6 Mafia’s “It’s Hard Out Here for a Pimp,” and, behind the scenes, netted credits for film scorer Scott Bomar and several local musicians. “Black Snake Moan,” the story of Lazarus, a newly inspired bluesman, brought more work and exposure to Memphis musicians.


In $5 Cover: Brewer crafts a salacious film interpretation of the Midtown music scene, spinning fact and fiction to create a heady world where lust and musicianship vie for equal camera time.


In $5 Cover Amplified: Brewer draws an analogy between his role as a contemporary storyteller and the underlying motive that drives William Holden’s character in the WWII epic “Bridge on the River Kwai”: finishing a project, regardless of the folly involved, at all costs.


On Memphis music: “The rhythm down here personifies sin and salvation. To get through the misery, you’ve gotta sing through it and move through it. That’s what the blues is.”


Latest news: Brewer has begun work on the script for what is expected to be his next feature film as a director, “Mother Trucker.”


--Andria Lisle


Craig Brewer on YouTube



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$5 Cover Amplified Summary:

Intimate, thoughtful, always entertaining and often formally daring, the 12 documentaries that comprise the anthology "$5 Cover Amplified" reveal a modern Memphis music scene that is as creative, passionate and vibrant as in the city's commercial heyday, when Elvis, Isaac Hayes and Al Green demonstrated that visionary art and popular culture could be inseparable as the 'A' and 'B' sides of a vinyl record.

Produced as a complement to Craig Brewer's episodic MTV drama series/ new media experiment, "$5 Cover," the "Amplified" series of documentary portraits chronicles the rousing art, uncertain careers and sometimes problematic home lives of a diverse, distinctive and often eccentric group of Memphis music-makers.

Mesmerizing Valerie June croons confessional lyrics from beneath a Medusan tangle of dreadlocks that's as thick as her family ties and her musical roots. The puckish Tommy Chong-meets-Pippi Longstocking "clown prince of rap," Muck Sticky, proves to be as dedicated to the welfare of his mother and sister as to his own pursuit of happiness. Punk rock pioneer Jack Oblivian, who plays to sell-out nightclub crowds in Europe, makes ends meet in Memphis by cleaning houses. "Crunk" hip-hop artist Al Kapone is shown to be a tough but loving father, bringing new urgency to the concept of rapper as "role model." Troubadour of heartbreak Harlan T. Bobo is portrayed impressionistically, through stop-motion animation, allegorical fantasy and other conceits.

Whatever the focus or style, the direction of Alan Spearman, an award-winning photographer/filmmaker with The Commercial Appeal, ensures that each segment is as visually assured as it is musically irresistible. "$5 Cover Amplified" was co-produced by Spearman, Andria Lisle and John Hubbell, and edited by Eileen Meyer; their familiarity with the Memphis "scene" ensures unprecedented authenticity as well as access.

John Beifuss- The Commercial Appeal