Brief thoughts on Wolves Always Come At Night (2024) Toronto 2024

Documentary/narrative hybrid about a shepherd in Mongolia forced to change his life and move to a village because of climate change.

This is an uneven film. The documentary parts of the film are an eye opening look at the life herding animals in Mongolia.  However the mixing of life on the plains with the story of a forced change doesn’t wholly work. While it’s not bad but the inclusion of created narrative results in some moments that don’t feel natural. The ending didn’t work for me for that reason.

While not bad, the film isn’t what it could have been if it was either purely a narrative or purely a documentary.

Gasoline Rainbow (2024)

Five high school aged kids set out in a van to travel 500 miles to see the ocean. Along the way life happens.

This is a form over content docudrama that succeeds as a work of art but is less successful as a narrative. This feels like a beautiful documentary, that might have worked had it been obvious by the shot choices and the way that things lay out that this free flowing trip across the Pacific Northwest was constructed by the cast and crew.  I say this in part because it's true and because the film moves the cast across the country in a way that only movies can move people. There is no real sense of danger, nor is there any real questioning when things go on, the kids just keep going.

Sure this a hymn of freedom and of impending lost innocence, but it's a professionally polished one. The result is a film that I admire  a lot more than I like. Its a film I would gladly watch with the sound off for the glorious pictures.

Gasoline Rainbow (2023) First Look Fest 2024

Five high school aged kids set out in a van to travel 500 miles to see the ocean. Along the way life happens.

This is a form over content docudrama that succeeds as a work of art but is less successful as a narrative. This feels like a beautiful documentary, that might have worked had it been obvious by the shot choices and the way that things lay out that this free flowing trip across the Pacific Northwest was constructed by the cast and crew.  I say this in part because it's true and because the film moves the cast across the country in a way that only movies can move people. There is no real sense of danger, nor is there any real questioning when things go on, the kids just keep going.

Sure this a hymn of freedom and of impending lost innocence, but it's a professionally polished one. The result is a film that I admire  a lot more than I like. Its a film I would gladly watch with the sound off for the glorious pictures.

Starring Jerry As Himself (2023) Slamdance 2023

This is a documentary narrative hybrid about Jerry Hsu who tells us the story of what happened after he was recruited by the Chinese police.

The less you know about the arc of this story the better it's going to play for you. I say that because this is a beautiful puzzle box of a film. This is a film about what happened to Jerry, his life, his family and the making of the film.  Its a film that is full layers and as the film goes on doors are opened and the layers of the story are peeled away.  

It's a hell of a ride...and a bracing cautionary tale that you need to see.

Kamikaze Hearts (1986) opens Friday

Legendary documentary about porn actresses Sharon Mitchell and Tigr charts their train wreck romance and well as the porn industry back in the day. Partially true and partly fictional the film is a walk on the wild side

I have been running into Kamikaze Hearts since it came out and I’ve always been mixed on the film.  My first cross into it was when I was looking for racy content without looking for racy content and finding out this isn’t the film for me.  Later when my tastes changed I tried the film again I went back because of the good reviews.  My return visit was similar to the first viewing in that I found the film good but not really my cup of tea.

The problem with the film is that Mitchell and Tigr are not particularly nice people, at least as seen in the film. Fueled by various substances the then real life couple were in a weird death spiral of a relationship that makes the term dysfunctional seem like a walk in the park. To me watching the film is like watching a road accident. I keep waiting for the crash. Over the years I’ve heard all sorts of stories about what was happening between them, and while most were probably fabrications or inflations of actual events that still leaves a good number to curl your hair. I suspect having heard stories colored my viewings of the film, which is unfortunate since I see the film as rather unpleasant.

With the film getting a restoration and rerelease from Kino I just wanted to put my thoughts out there. I’m sure some people will love the film, but I’m not sure about the rest.

Peter Watkins' LA COMMUNE hits Ovid.TV April 9

Peter Watkins recreates the short lived Paris Commune which sprung up after the government fled the city after the Prussians invaded. The central conceit is that all of the events are being broadcast and analyzed by two TV stations one for the official government and one for the commune.

Massive (there are over 200 speaking roles) and very long (it's six hours)  LA COMMUNE is either going to thrill you or bore you. This is everything you wanted to know and more, how you are going to react is dependent upon how you react to the endless interviews with the people on the street. This is a film about how events were viewed by the masses and we get a healthy dose of that.

I'm not going to lie, my interest came and went. I really don't know why this had to be six hours. I was overloaded. On some level I think the rave reviews for the film are simply critics being bludgeoned into submission. 

Frankly this is a film I admire more than I like.

Bird Island (2020) Art of the Real 2020

 

Bird Island is not a film for everyone/ Essentially a narrative about the strange goings on at a bird sanctuary in Switzerland it is performed by people at a bird sanctuary. It is quiet and contemplative as the damaged people take care of damaged birds and get them ready for release back into the world.

Quiet and gentle, the film doesn’t explain much outside of the care of the birds. We get hints of avaian trouble beyond the sanctuary and with in the lives of the keepers but nothing is spelled out. Much of the sound we hear are simply the sound of the birds . Yes there is some dialog and a voice over but this is in many ways more like a mediation. That means this is either going to excite you to no end or put you to sleep.

Personally I was kind of torn. I loved what I was seeing I was into the obtuse nature of some of it, but the slow quiet nature of the film had me nodding off. I just drifted off and stared like one of the birds who forgot their past life.

If that sounds great to you go for it. All others are probably best looking elsewhere

Nate Hood's Quarantine Qapsule #76 Medium Cool [1969] ★★★½

In the wake of the police riot where security forces tear gassed hundreds of demonstrators protesting the 1968 Democratic National Convention, Chicago mayor and “last of the big city bosses” Richard J. Daley made Freudian slip history when he misspoke saying that “the policeman isn't there to create disorder; the policeman is there to preserve disorder.”

But if Haskell Wexler’s Medium Cool is any indication, the true preservers of disorder are the press themselves, the sacred Fourth Estate which seeks to record and not interfere. This is shown most bluntly at the beginning of the film where the protagonist, television news cameraman John Cassellis (Robert Forster), stops at a car accident to film the carnage, ignoring the cries of a survivor, and only calls for an ambulance after he’s got his footage. From there, the film charts Cassellis’ political awakening from neutral bystander to active participant in the social upheaval he's assigned to cover, climaxing in the actual DNC riots where Wexler and his crew found themselves trapped in the middle of the chaos. (In one famous moment when the cops start firing tear gas, we hear someone offscreen shout “Look out, Haskell—it’s real!”) It’s the kind of cinematic kismet most directors only dream of, and it’s one of the most chilling examples of a filmmaker’s camera being in the right place at the right time this side of Barbara Kopple unexpectedly recording an attempted strikebreaker assassination in Harlan County, USA (1976).

But unlike Harlan County, Wexler’s film is a docu-fiction hybrid that puts, as Roger Ebert once memorably described, “fictional characters in real situations [and] real characters in fictional situations.” On the one hand we have Cassellis whose political awakening—spurred on by a confrontation with black activists and the discovery that his news station has been giving his footage to the FBI—is matched with his romance with Eileen (Verna Bloom), a single mom from West Virginia who struggles to provide for her curious but emotionally withdrawn son Harold (Harold Blankenship). On the other we have vignettes—some staged, some apparently not—of America’s nervous breakdown, from belligerent, white gun owners at a shooting range to a training montage of National Guardsmen rehearsing crowd dispersal techniques. Do the two mix? Not always, particularly the odd flashbacks involving Harold and his deadbeat dad back in West Virginia, but as a document of 1968 America’s psyche it’s irreplaceable.

American Trial: The Eric Garner Story (2019) NYFF 2019

Unfairly getting lost in the final weekend of the New York Film Festival is AMERICAN TRIAL: THE ERIC GARNER STORY which very probably is the most important film playing at this years festival.

The film is a docufiction  trial of New York City Officer Pantaleo who wrestled Eric Garner to the ground using a choke hold when they he and several other officers tried to arrest him for selling loose cigarettes. Since Pantaleo was never indicted, so he never went to trial,  filmmaker Roee Messinger assembled a team of former prosecutors and a team of expert defense lawyers to use the public record and actual witnesses to put the officer on trial.  Pantaleo is portrayed by actor Anthony Altieri and his words are those found in the public record.

Allowing that some witnesses who would have been called to trial, (the man who shot the infamous video, the other officers, any other people on the street) AMERICAN TRIAL goes a long way to say that Pantaleo should have at least been indicted. The evidence is there to at least take the case to trial since its clear that within the definition of the NYPD department guidelines and the law what Pantaleo did was not allowed and probably strangulation under the criminal definition even if only for a matter of seconds. Watching the film, which was not scripted by simply the record of the mock trial the full extent of the miscarriage of justice can be seen.

Again in fairness to the fact that we do not get to see all the witnesses that we would have seen at trial, I will hold off saying that Pantaleo would have been convicted at trial, but he should have been indicted. All of the information needed for that is in the public record....

I should also point out that one of the strengths of the film is that it points out that there are things that most of us don't know such as the facts concerning what happened prior to the video such as a fight, not involving Garner (who according to testimony tried to break it up) that took place that brought the police and that ten minutes of unrecorded talk between the cops and Garner happened before the video began which makes it even more curious as to why things suddenly escalated. A full accounting of what happened makes clear at what a tragedy this was.

In fairness I do need to quibble about one or to choices that Roee Messinger makes in the later portion of the film and that is to add flourishes outside of the courtroom proceedings to paint Pantaleo as a bad guy. She hammers home the points that Pantaleo had numerous unsubstantiated reports concerning civilian charges against him. While there is no doubt they are part of the public record, and her use of them outside of the court room portion of the film are merely flourishes to show the officer as not a nice guy, their use and they way they are included, despite being fleeting, will allow those who think Pantaleo was right in what he did to dismiss the film as a hatchet job. Those seconds of screen time make this a film some people can dismiss if they choose to. But that is a quibble.

Ultimately AMERICAN TRIAL:THE ERIC GARNER STORY is a kick in the ass and a wake up call concerning the criminal justice system. It is a must see film.

The film is World Premiering  today at the New York Film Festival at 6pm. Tickets are free. For more information and tickets go here.

Slamdance 2019 Short Takes TUNGRUS, LOST HOLIDAY and WE ARE THANKFUL

Part documentary, part narrative WE ARE THANKFUL tells the story of lead actor Siyabonga Majola, playing a version of himself. He lives in a small town and wants to be an actor. When he finds a film is going to be made nearby he travels to the set where he meets director Joshua Magor is working. Very meta film is an interesting piece of docufiction. How you react to it is going to be determined by how you react to the observational portions of the film.

I am not sure what I think of LOST HOLIDAY. Listing as a mystery, the film is more the wanderings of a well off college couple who travel through Washington DC kind of get involved in a kidnapping and stuff. To be honest mostly what I remember is just --- being cranky and quietly pining for an old flame. I lost interest because I really didn’t like anyone so I didn’t have any reason to care or connect.

I am kind of at a loss about what to say about TUNGRUS. This short doc is about a family that is being terrorized by their pet chicken. Normally it wouldn’t be a problem but they live in an apartment and have an insane bird wandering around is handful. The family is interviewed and they discuss the possibility of killing and eating the errant fowl. Running 13 minutes the film is one of those films that is better to see rather than read about. Recommended.

Impetus (2018) Slamdance 2019

I am unsure what I think of Impetus.

Jennifer Alleyn‘s merging of documentary and fiction is as beautifully made as you will ever see. It is haunting and ethereal in exactly the right way. I love the way it looks and the way it feels—and I have no idea what I am supposed to get out of it. As much as I love much of the film I really don’t know what I am supposed to feel about it.

The film charts Alleyn‘s dealing with the leaving of her significant other which sends her spiraling down and beginning work on a film. As she deals with the ups and downs with her life she tries to get her film made, which becomes complicated as actors come and go and return looking differently making adjustments necessary. We watch the shooting of the film, completed sequences, interviews of friends and random images she hopes to include in the film.

Half way into the film I was enjoying what I was seeing but nothing was hanging together. What exactly was the meaning? I didn’t know.

I suspect that there are those who like ambiguous arty films will tell me exactly what I’m missing, but for right now I’m still not sure what I think.

If you like beautiful films that break classifications and unique then make sure to see IMPETUS when it plays at Slamdance.

NYAFF 2018 CAPSULES: HIT THE NIGHT, END OF SUMMER and THE RETURN

HIT THE NIGHT
A filmmaker interviews a friend of hers over drinks in order to get information for an upcoming film, but he has another motive in mind.

If you are a fan of filmmaker Hong Sang-soo then you will be delighted with exploration of the territory between men and women. Simply a series of conversations this is not something to see if you want any sort of action of any sort other than verbal. The the fireworks are in the words.

If you like the idea of two people sitting around talking this is for you.

(For me this was like watching a Sang-soo film, something I liked but as soon as it was done I was ready to go to the next thing)

END OF SUMMER
The effect of the 1998 World Cup in China on a staid teacher, a grumpy Grandfather and a 10 year old boy.

Don’t go into End of Summer looking for a sports film and you’ll be fine. This is a sweet little drama that tugs the heart strings a bit before disappearing from the brain. I enjoyed it while it was on but it got washed away in the wave of other films playing at NYAFF.

THE RETURN
Two Danish-Korean adoptees return to Korea to try and run down their birth families and the country they never knew.

With overseas adoption being a booming industry this ix of fiction and documentary is a revealing look at what it means to be born in one place to one set of parents and raised by another some where else. An emotional journey for everyone involved this is a film that will stick with you hanging around on the fringes of your psyche making you wonder what if it as you.

Hong Kong Trilogy: Preschooled Preoccupied Preposterous (Hoeng gong saam bou kuk) (2015)

HONG KONG TRILOGY vexes me.

A film unlike any other by director Christopher Doyle it is unlike any film I've ever seen set in  or about Hong Kong. It is a mix of documentary and fiction described in the press materials as follows:

In three docufiction segments, Doyle looks at three generations of Hong Kongers: School children, young “Umbrella Movement” activists, and the elderly. Overlaying audio from interview recordings onto loose narrative vignettes, Doyle creates sweet, richly textured, free-flowing portraits of a bevy of unforgettable characters, here just in time for the Umbrella Movement’s anniversary.

Which states it perfectly.

Unfortunately I am not sure that the film works completely.

Because it seems the story was cut from the footage shot a great deal of it doesn't hang together. You great a great image with a perfect voice over but at the same time going past the moment things don't quite work. Characters like the cute little girl in red is absolutely adorable but some of what she does just sort of there. Other characters never amount to much.

The biggest problem is pacing is also off  with the first third being a tough slog. It improves after that

The most interesting part of the film is the middle section on the Umbrella Movement. Owing to Doyle's eye and skill as a cinematographer we see life on the street in ways that the major news sources in the West never  revealed. This is Doyle working at the top of his game and it draws us in and makes us part of the Movement. There is much in this middle section to delight audiences and it's wonderful enough that despite the slow first part of the I'd strongly suggest you see film.

Actually since the film is by Christopher Doyle I'd recommend it with or without reservations. This is not idle worship of a director, rather its the respect for a master who makes films that are frequently imperfect but which contain so much intriguing material that they can not be dismissed. Give me a Doyle directed (or photographed) film over almost any other directors any day. He may make a film that doesn't work but it will be one that you can't shake and can't not think about for days (weeks after seeing the HONG KONG TRILOGY I'm still haunted by it). In point of fact Doyle is one the greatest directors working today and we simply do not have enough films from him.

HONG KONG TRILOGY opens Friday for a week long run at NYC's Metrograph.

Flames (2017)Tribeca 2017

Zefrey Throwell and Josephine Decker's look at their relationship is as pretentious a film as I've seen at Tribeca this year. A self indulgent, self important piece of trash this film would be something if they chopped an hour of this away and set the rest on fire.

Beginning with the couple having the first of several sexual encounters the film drifts through the curse (and course) of their relationship as we watch sequences that seem to be a mix of staged scenes and real moments. The film follows them through time as the relationship eventually implodes and the pair then sits in a room and discusses what when wrong while editing footage.

It should be said the best stuff is the editing stuff with the couple looking back. There is something about those moments that really works and we get a sense of the two directors as something other than annoying hipsters. The second best is some of the trippy imagery, landscapes turned side ways and weird lighting. There are these wonderful wordless shots that delight.

Unfortunately the rest of the film, well over an hour of material that is unbearable. Why anyone thought we would have any interest in these two people is beyond me.Decker, outside of the editing room, comes off whiney and Throwell is just an asshole. Why the hell were they together and why are they still talking?  And who thought we'd  want to see them screwing---over and over again? What is this the inde hipster version of 9 SONGS? Than movie was bad, though not as bad as this.

To be honest I'm not sure if this is docufiction or straight documentary. The film wasn't self shot, camera crews filmed everything and but I'm not sure who was doing it. It makes me wonder if the couple redid some of this or are just so fucking narcissistic that they had some one film their lives. I really don't want to know- but I'm curious.

Looking around the auditorium during the critics screening- hey I was looking for something to actually interesting to pass the time- I noticed lots of people sleeping. Frankly I've never seen so many people asleep at a screening. (I also spent a lot of time wondering who all the people were who were walking out)

Do you need to know this? No

Is it proper to report this? No, but then again it's not proper to put your home movies and sex tapes on the big screen and ask people to actually pay to see it.

I hate this movie

Avoid it.

Art of the Real 2017 starts Thursday night

Art of the Real, Lincoln Center’s annual look at the varieties of documentary filmmaking starts Thursday.

The festival tends to shy from traditional documentaries for films that tend to be more experimental and often blur the line between fact and fiction. The films are never typical and are often for more interesting for how they are told as opposed to their subjects. That is not a knock rather that the festival can bring some truly magical things to the screen.

I’ve seen seven of the offerings at this year fest and I’ve been delighted by some and disappointed by others. That shouldn’t turn you off to anything. Art of the Real’s strength is that it brings together atypical films that affect everyone differently – they are films that may or may not work for you- but at the same time they are films that leave you knowing that you have seen something more than the typical multiplex film or even your typical non-fiction film. Everything they run is worth trying if the subject interests you.

As this posts I’m trying to work out getting to see the opening selection The Rats Film which several people have told me is one of the very best films of the year. I have a few more to screen and I hope to get some more reviews up. (The curse of the festival is that it is running opposite Tribeca)

What follows are my thoughts on what I’ve seen.


For tickets and more information go here.

I covered MODERN JUNGLE during this years Slam Dance and I liked it very much. It's a film about some people living in an isolated community that becomes very meta since there is no pretense to ignore the cameras. Its a must see. Here is a link to the review 

VOYAGE TO TERENGGANU
Directors Amir Muhammad and Badrul Hisham Ismail trace scholar Munshi Abdullah trip across Malaysia and end up with an impressionistic portrait of the land and people.
Beautiful but uneven film will have your interest fluctuating as it moves from segment to segment. In a weird way I like the sequences that don't have anyone in them

CASA ROSHELL
Portrait of the titled location, a place where men can escape to and let their feminine side come out. An odd mix of docudrama, documentary and experimental filmmaking never finds it's footing with the result that despite the film being a documentary the location feels unreal.

THE SKY THE EARTH THE RAIN
Meditative look at a woman who hardly speaks going to work for a man in the remote country and their largely silent existence. Docufiction film has some lovely sequences but the pacing is slow and after a while the beautiful images aren't enough to carry the audience to the end. If you like slow uiet films give this a shot other wise skip it.

THIS IS THE WAY I LIKE IT II
Director Ignacio Agüero revisits his earlier and much censored short film by revisiting the subjects and asking similar questions about life and filmmaking (under Pinochet) and then intercutting his home movies. At times absolutely fascinating film is a wonderful look  at how filmmakers view the world and their art- but from a very different perspective. While some of the flourishes such as the home movies don't always work, the kernels of information in the interviews make this a must see for the curious.

EMPATHY
Jeffrey Dunn Rovinelli's portrait of Em Cominotti a call girl and heroine addict is a slice of life film that is co-opted by it's subject. An interesting film to a point many of the scenes run on way too long and while they give a sense of life they also don't always hold ones attention.

THE DAZZLING LIGHT OF SUNSET
A portrait of the only broadcast reporter for a Georgian TV channel follows her as she deals with stories like the capture of an owl, street paving and the obituaries. Its a world where everything must be shown in the best light. This is a look at small town life and how it strives to be more and seem more than it is. While it's deliberate pacing and construction may turn off some the film is in fact something that is going to hang with you and keep you thinking for days afterward.

Wolf and Sheep (2016) MOMA Doc Fortnight 2017

Writer Director Shahrbanoo Sadat spent part of her childhood living in the countryside of Afghanistan. She has teken her love and respect for the land and the people and turned it into the magical WOLF AND SHEEP.

A fictional account that is very rooted in the documentary the film is more a slice of life as opposed to a full on narrative. I know we are supposed to see some sort of narrative in the life of the characters, and the children in particular, but the thread is very fine and it's better not to get tangled up in any notion of plot and just take it as a magically realistic documentary.

Bookended by somber events, the death of a villager by cancer and the coming of unknown gunman the film presents a rather hopeful portrait of life being lived in between. Yes there are hardships and the like but the people go on. They are good people, like anywhere in the world. Its easy to understand why Sadat felt compelled to make a film about them, they are people you would want to meet in real life.

And because of the present situation here in the US it's hard not to reach the ending and ponder Trump Administration's attempt to ban refugees from the US. After seeing the film one would be hard pressed not to offer the fleeing villagers a place to live.

This is one of the best films at MOMA's Doc Fortnight and very recommended.

For tickets and more information go here.

The Newtown/ Sandy Hook never happened films

Before you crucify me for even mentioning the films one should at least acknowledge that this sort of insanity is out there. Its kind of like the 911 conspiracies, the we never went to the moon conspiracies, the JFK/MLK conspiracies, holocaust denial and what ever else you want to toss into the alternate history camps. People are doubting everything, and thus believing in nothing with result that what we know about our past is being tossed into doubt just because someone has come up with a better explanation.

To be honest the reason conspiracies such as these come up is that people can't believe and refuse to believe that shit happens. People can't believe that there are evil people out there and that things happen. Worse people refuse to believe that lone nut jobs can do horrible things. Its all a terrible plot.

And some times it is and sometimes it's not and now a days it's impossible to know because the instant something happened there is so much much noise from the instant something happens you can't tell. The moment a tragedy happens the conspiracy boards light up and people, with no facts to go on are telling you why the CIA/FBI/NSA or whom ever is behind it. You have people taking for gospel fact anything that is reported during the event and relying on often incorrect reports as the truth-despite the fact that down the road they will curse mainstream media for not telling the whole story. Witnesses are truthful if they say what they want to hear, regardless of the later found to be lying.

The upside is that everyone is an investigator- which is good because many eyes often find something- but bad because sometimes these investigators aren't checking their sources and take everything at face value or worse  cherry picking what they want to see (the film 911 IN PLAIN SITE reference 911 LOOSE CHANGE to back up it's POV that a missile hit the pentagon except that LOOSE CHANGE actually denies that)

All of which brings me around to the Sandy Hook massacre where a classroom of first graders were killed by a lone nut job and people are denying that it ever happened.

Actually there are levels to denial, running from it was a set up to get over a political agenda having to do with gun control, to what happened is not what was reported to it never happened and is a completely false story to not only did it never happen the town and everything connected to it was completely made up. (with that last one you kind of see the disease that is out there)
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Because I'm weird and like to look into contrary points of view one Sunday in September I sat down and watched a couple of long form documentaries on the anti-Sandy Hook line of thought. Just because someone takes an opposing stand from you it doesn't mean they are wrong so I figured I'd bite the bullet and take a look. I watched We Need to Talk About Sandy Hook, something called Newtown NUKE! Sandy Hook FAKE FBI On TV (Smoking Gun PROOF), NEW Footage, What Really Happened at Sandy Hook and a bunch of short pieces.

To watch the films is a very weird experience, and that says something because I've been reading on conspiracy theory since I was a teenager. The films put you in a very weird place that kind of is like our world and yet isn't. More so than almost any other conspiracy theory I've run across it's pieces seem to be operating in a vacuum, nothing connects to reality or even it's own reality. I kind of understand why some people take the standpoint that the town doesn't exist because within the confines of the conspiracy its less real than the land of elves and fairies.

I can not and will not list all the conspiracy points one by one. There is simply too many odd bits to counter, but there are a few that are worth mention.

The starting point for many of the docs is that many of the people connected to the victims have theatrical background. Because they are performers they must be acting. Additionally when these performers appeared on TV they seemed to be well spoken and not broken up. Never mind they would be trained to go on, they ween't broken up there for there was no loss. Of course the fact that New Town was picked by many performers because it's in a good location to get away from the grind of NYC is never brought up.

People are bothered by what we see in the various footage aired and released by the police. What we see in one piece of footage doesn't jibe with other pieces. In one piece proof of a conspiracy was hinged on a time coded police dash camera pointing away from the school. Because the time stamp on footage didn't exactly match the released time line of events there is a problem. Worse the filmmakers never assumes that fleeing people may not have gone in front of that one camera.

We have the old story of what is heard on police scanners and TV news reports is gospel truth. One documentary plays a police radio call say there was a report of other people in other locations. the filmmakers assume its true, except that having a connection to law enforcement I know that sometimes the report of something is a misidentification or an error. Guys in the woods could have been students or press or something even other cops. There is no explanation given if any effort to fully work out why the reports was made. People simply assume that any report that came was the truth even before the police checked it out.

The stories told by kids in the school is used to show nothing happened. Because kids in different part of the school had different experiences doesn't mean nothing happened. Like wise the fact that some kids don't seem shaken up means nothing as well because at the time of the interview they may not have anything to be upset about, additionally how kids react is not how an adult does plus we don't know what the interaction was between them and the reporter- were they kibitzing before the interview? We don't know.

We don't know how much about the research, assuming any was, done, While that is always the case with any documentary, this is always a serious question with conspiracy docs because some time a good story is too good to spoil, and because in many cases everyone assumes the guy they are taking the point  from did their investigation or knows what they are talking about- sadly that isn't the case . For example I got into a battle over the chemistry regarding the steel in something with 911. The person I was arguing with was taking a certain doctor's word about the chemical make up and melting points and such. They insisted that since they had a doctorate so they knew what they were talking about, until I pointed out the doctorate was in history and they weren't trained in chemistry (of course this didn't mean they didn't know but rather it had to be investigated further)

While the vast majority of the theories presented can be dismissed or have holes poked into there  is one point which needs to be explained and really looked at. I  know people will be upset for me for saying this, and in the interest of fairness, I have to say that there is only one area that makes raises questions and that is the various Google cache web pages which allegedly show reference to events days before the events. I'm sure there is an explanation, and if it as only one I could dismiss it out of hand but there appears to be several which at least makes it troubling. I'm not saying it means anything but rather its the only point they really have worth investigating.

As for the films themselves they are a messy bunch with jagged editing and serious point of view. They want you to believe what they do and at times you'll feel like you're drowning. The best of the bunch is We Need to Talk About Sandy Hook which looks professional, nicely lays out its points and isn't in your face. If you are going to watch one film on the subject that's the one to do it. On the other hand the film is almost three hours long and interest will flag by the half way point.(Why do so many of these films think that more is more?)

Your choice to see the films is yours-but from my perspective other than a what if game, there is absolutely nothing worth seeing here.

Nathanael Hood ponders whether we should CHEER UP at DOC NYC

With a little re-editing you could probably market Christy Garland’s Cheer Up as a cinéma vérité sports drama instead of as a documentary. It has all the trappings of a fiction film, it just happens to star non-fictional people doing non-fictional things. The Arctic Circle Spirit is the worst cheerleading squad in Finland, coming in a humiliating last place at the annual Finnish National Cheerleading Qualifiers in Oulu. Determined to turn the team around, their head coach Miia travels to Dallas, Texas—the Mecca of cheerleading—to get tips from American experts. Armed with a fresh can-do attitude and all the wrong lessons, she proceeds to bully her team, spouting platitudes about being a family all while doing virtually nothing to help them actually become better cheerleaders. If they create new routines or try new moves, then the film doesn’t show them. We just see a lot of “tough love” and footage of young women cracking their noses against the floor. Unsurprisingly, at the next round of Qualifiers, they come in second to last. It’d be funny if the film didn’t take it all so damn seriously.

But there’s not an ounce of levity anywhere in Cheer Up. The plot summary I mentioned above takes up maybe 15 minutes of screen-time. The rest of the film explores the dour, gloomy lives of Miia and her cheerleaders. It quickly becomes apparent that maybe the reason why the cheerleaders are terrible isn’t that they’re unskilled, but because they’re all crippled with depressing home lives. One girl can’t escape her grief over her mom’s death and can’t handle how her father has gotten another woman pregnant. Another languishes in a dead-end life with a dead-end boyfriend in a dead-end band. There’s even one weird subplot about Miia finally finding love on tindr, hooking up, getting dumped, and discovering she’s pregnant like it’s the prologue of a cheap Victorian novel about miserable people falling in love on the Scottish moors.

But I get it: if the film’s ironic title wasn’t a dead giveaway, Cheer Up isn’t so much about cheerleading as it is a group of cheerleaders trying to find meaning and purpose in their sad little lives. Then why does the film set itself up in the first third as being an inspirational sports flick? It’s shot, paced, and edited with all the fluidity and focus of a fiction film. But afterwards it finds prolonged shots of the cheerleaders walking through the snowy Finnish countryside with their cats more interesting than the cheerleading. I’ll bet there’s more scenes of the cheerleaders smoking in silence than of them actually practicing. The film can’t even keep itself formally consistent. Nowhere is this more apparent than during the film’s SINGLE talking head interview. It’s not at the beginning or end either, it’s somewhere in the middle.

The overall effect is a film that’s unfocused, unclear, directionless. The film barely cracks 80 minutes, but it feels over two hours long.

3/10

CHEER UP plays at DOC NYC later today. For tickets and more information go here.