Janis Joplin: One of a kind

When Janis Joplin died of a heroin overdose in October of 1970, she was 27 years old. Fair to say, Joplin packed a whole lot of living into 27 years that began in Port Arthur, Texas and ended on the floor of a Hollywood hotel room. Director Amy Berg captures most of Joplin's short, hectic life as a bullied Texas girl who blossomed into a rock star whose emotions were expressed in raw, howling fashion in venues ranging from Monterey to Woodstock. If you don't know what I mean, check out 1968's Piece of My Heart or Cry Baby, released in 1971 after her death. Berg, who told the story of a pedophile priest in the chilling Deliver us from Evil (2006), uses letters written by Joplin (read by Cat Power) and lots of great archival and private footage to paint a portrait of a hard-living, but deeply vulnerable woman who seemed to feel alive only when she was on stage. Off stage, Joplin never seemed to know what to do with her emotions, so she lived with a blues' singer's load of pain. From early days, through her years with Big Brother and the Holding Company to stardom as a headliner, Janis: Little Girl Blue offers a compelling portrait of a woman too free to be contained and too wounded to call any place home. A must for music fans and those who want to recall a bit of the mind-blowing chaos of the '60s.

Injustice in West Memphis, Ark.

The documentary West of Memphis continues and embellishes work begun by Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky in their well-received documentary Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills. Berlinger and Sinfoksy followed their initial film with two more documentaries about the gruesome Arkansas child murders. Now comes director Amy Berg's take on the subject, which joins movies such as last year's The Central Park Five in calling much-needed attention to the troubling issue of false confessions. Working with producer Peter Jackson and his partner Fran Walsh (of Lord of the Rings fame), Berg (Deliver Us From Evil) presents a telling and often disturbing look at a case that began with the 1993 murders of three eight-year-old boys in West Memphis, Ark. The murders, accompanied by hideous mutilations, initially were thought to be the work of a satanic cult. Three teen-agers -- Jason Baldwin, Jessie Misskelley  and Damien Echols -- were convicted of a crime that shocked the small community of West Memphis. Echols faced a death sentence, based mostly on a confession by Misskelley, a developmentally challenged young man.  Like its predecessors,  Berg's film does a fine job demonstrating that the three teen-agers were victims of the legal system in which they became ensnared. I won't dwell on details, but know -- as mentioned earlier -- that West of Memphis can be viewed as a harrowing companion piece to Sarah and Ken Burns's The Central Park Five. Although the milieus of the two films differ radically, both deal with what can happen when growing public hysteria conflates with a lust for punishment. West of Memphis is bound to give you pause about abuses in the American judicial system. It's worth noting that Echols, who spent 18 years on death row and who married while in prison, receives a producers credit, along with his wife Lorri Davis. And, unlike the photo above, West of Memphis was not shot in black-and-white.