***½/****
directed by Luis Fernandez de la Reguera
by Travis Mackenzie Hoover The lively but tragic saga of Michael Morra, a.k.a. Rockets Redglare, is explored in this somewhat crude but extremely moving documentary. Morra/Redglare lived a life that would be ennobled by the word "marginal": he was born a heroin-addicted baby, raised in grinding poverty, all but witnessed the murder of his mother, and bounced from needle to rehab to needle again in a titanic losing battle with addiction. But he was also an extremely creative individual, and rose in the '80s to become a character actor, comedian, and performance artist of some note. Famous friends (Jim Jarmusch, Steve Buscemi, Matt Dillon, Willem Dafoe) gather to sing his praises as both performer and friend, while his own drawling testimony on his life is offered as evidence of who he was. There's nothing particularly radical about director Luis Fernandez de la Reguera's interviews-clips-more interviews approach, but his subject is so fascinating and so full of surprises that you're not likely to notice. Redglare is riveting not only because of his chequered past, but as a defiant survivor and an extroverted bon vivant. His jokes will make you want to cry out of what informed them, his outrageous misfortunes will make you laugh at their slapstick enormity, and at the abrupt, sad end of both film and subject, you feel a huge sorrow for this man's passing.
