DOC NYC 2021Capsules THE JOB OF SONGS and KEEP IT A SECRET

 

THE JOB OF SONGS
A magnificent portrait of Doolin in County Clare in Ireland through it’s music.

I don’t know what to say except that this film rocks. It’s a film that will get your toes tapping and make you want to get up and dance. It’s a celebration of the Irish music, the people who play it and the places that gave birth to it. It’s a glorious portrait of everything that is like watching a cinematic hug. I loved the film so much I wanted to book a flight and disappear into the Irish country side.

Beyond that all that’s left to say is but buy a ticket and take a ride, your soul will thank you.

KEEP IT A SECRET
This is a portrait of Irish surfing culture, which may sound like an oxymoron but the truth is it’s not. The truth is that that there is a surfing culture that sprung up when Kevin Cavey discovered a picture of surfers in Readers Digest and saw that the Irish coast had similar waves.

KEEP IT A SECRET is one of the great surprises of DOC NYC. I never expected to see a film on Irish surfing because I ever knew that they surfed there. I had a blast watching the story unfold.

What I loved about the film is that it moved like the wind. This is a finely crafted film that backs a huge amount of material in a brief running time. More films should be this well paced…

…and this good. This is a super film that will open up your eyes and make you  sit in wide eyed wonder.

Highly recommended.

DOC NYC Capsules: THE BUSINESS OF BIRTH CONTROL and YOUNG PLATO

BUSINESS OF BIRTH CONTOL
This is a look at the history of the pill. Its alook at how modern medicine and science changed how women saw themselves and their bodies.  

This is an excellent exploration of how the pill changed everything that came after it. It is also one hell of a story about some of the darker aspects of the tale, such a how the problems with the formulations caused all sorts of problems and how the marketing of the pills altered how they were used. 

This is a meaty exploration of a very complex subject that I am going to freely say I need to see again. Films like this are tough for me to really write up in a film festival situation simply because it needs way more bandwidth then I can give it to fully take in everything it is telling me (I as watching this in the middle of seeing around 50 films). That said this is a vital film that needs to be seen and which I will be revisiting down the road.

YOUNG PLATO
Portrait of Mr. McArevey, headmaster at a Catholic primary school in Northern Ireland and the community it is serving. McArevey is very involved with the kids and isn't above teaching philosophy to young kids as a means of helping them deal with the world.

This is an observational documentary very much like th work of Frederick Wiseman unfortunately unlike Wiseman the filmmakers struggle with fully engaging the audience. Part of the problem is that outside of McArevey, we really don't connect to anyone. Everyone is a face, a figure kept at arms length. While I could appreciate the achievement of what I as seeing, I never as emotionally connected.

BRIAN WILSON: LONG PROMISED ROAD (2021)

This is a loving portrait of the main force behind the peak years of the Beach Boys. If you’re not already a Brian Wilson fan this is a film that will make you one.

TO be honest I went into this film liking Wilson but not thinking he was anything special. Coming out of it I became even more impressed. I mean the man had the Beach Boys record one song in multiple studios so that he could use the acoustic strengths of each to his advantage. I had never heard of anything like that.  The film is full of icons of the last half century of popular music singing his praises and telling us how he changed the world and why it matters.

This is a great story.

If the film has any weakness it comes from two places one small and one big. The small one is that the film is a bit too loving. Everyone’s words are a bit too dripping in sugar. Yes Wilson deserves it but how it’s put together comes off a little too loving.

The bigger problem is that the person who is interviewing Wilson a much too loving. The result is that a  number of his questions come across as cringe worthy.

But the problems are minor and what matters, Brian Wilson’s genius comes through.

Recommended.

the Blood in the Snow short AN UNIVITED GUEST

 Three white people and a Black man have dinner while the police beat up another Black man.

One of the most chilling political films you’ll see all year. this is a damning indictment of  racism and the refusal to say anything. 

How is this not getting screened everywhere? It says volumes in  three minutes about racism and the police. 

A masterpiece

Black Friday (2021)

Once BLACK FRIDAY gets up and moving this is a nifty science fiction thriller. It's a nice mix of monsters and mayhem with a heathy dose of humor (hey Bruce Campbell is in this). 

The plot has a meteor like thing crashing through the roof of a box store early on Thanksgiving. As the small crew is setting up they soon find that there was something on the meteor. Soon the rest of the staff has banged in and the doors are open and things begin to get messy.

Hitting a lot of the expected points and lot more unexpected ones BLACK FRIDAY entertains. It never reinvents the wheel, but it holds our attention way more than many other similar films because it plays things pretty straight. To be certain some of the jokes are predicatable (shoppers as zombies for example) bt more times than not it keeps things fresh so we don't know where it's going.

I had a blast to the point I'm considering a rewatchwith the family after the Thanksgiving dinner is done.

Recommended.

DOC NYC 2021 Capsules COMALA and REFUGE

 COMALA
This is the story of director Gian Cassini trying to figure out who his father was, why he was killed and attempting to heal his broken family. It’s not an easy task since his mother refuses to deal with the past, and the fact his father was a hitman in particular. It’s a story that will take him all over Mexico and put him in contact with some unexpected people

To be honest this film didn’t work for me. While I found the story compelling, I never connected with the presentation. Watching the story unfold I never really got a sense of what I was supposed to feel. This is supposed to be a story that is supposed to help the family heal but I don’t think that angle works. I know the problem is with ---‘s relationship with his mother.  Her refusal to see the way things are, something we largely know from the start thanks to the news stories of ---’ death, makes this a film that doesn’t seem to be aiming to go anywhere. There isn’t a narrative arc so much as a narrative meander.

While I like the underlying story and was intrigued by Cassini‘s revelations about his father it never much worked for me beyond that.

 REFUGE
At the opening of Refuge the film looks like it’s going to follow the typical tale of a white supremacist and a member of a group he professes to hate becoming friends. It’s the sort of thing that we’ve seen in numerous films over the years. It looks like  it’s going to follow the typical track. However the film begins to bend relatively early on as we get to know Chris Buckley and Heaval Kelli.  We really like the two gentlemen. We can see them as friends. Actually what begins the film bending is the story of Clarkston a small city in Georgia not far from where Buckley lives.  This is a where Kelli lives. The city has been welcoming refugees and immigrants for decades and as a result it has grown and prospered into a place where everyone is welcome. It’s ground zero for the story since it is through visits to the town that Buckley begins to change his mind.

This is a super little film. While the film doesn’t chart any new ground, it does give us a great deal of hope since the film shows us clearly what can happen if we don’t choose hate.  That the film works as well as it does it thanks to  Buckley and Kelli as well as Mama Amina who charms our pants off. We see what not going into darkness will bring us. Literally choosing love, Buckley‘s wife tells him change or she would divorce him and take their kids, can change our lives for the better.

What a wonderful film.

Recommended

DOC NYC Capsules 2021: I'M WANITA, THE REVEREND and YOUNG PUNX

I’M WANITA
Portrait of Australian Honky Tonk singer Wanita Archer who wants to travel to Nashville in order to record a real country album.

Very good bio of a no nonsense woman who wants to make her dream come true. Full of great music it is recommended.

THE REVEREND
Portrait of Vince Anderson who went to New York to become a minister and instead found music.

Wonderful portrait of a one of a kind performer and his merry band of  musicians. It’s a wild ride full of great music and greater stories.

One of the finds of DOC NYC.

YOUNG PUNX A PUNK PARABEL
Portrait of the rock group Kid Color made up of young kids who rock out so well that they have played various music festivals, opened for the Mighty Mighty Bostones and played with Green Day.

Charming family friendly rock and roll tale will put a smile on your face with its tale of kids living the dream. While the film is probably too long even in it’s short 70 something minute run time, it still manages to entertain.

Definitely worth a look

Feast (2021) opens Friday

A rich family prepares dinner with a local business man and farmer who are there in order to discuss the use of the land for a mine. However things go wrong thanks to the young woman who is serving the meal.

THE FEAST is a mannered artistic horror film with a point. It is beautifully composed and very deliberately put together. It is about more things rather than just the scares. This is a film about the society and environment, that is constructed in such away that you are very aware of the worlds the film is inhabiting Whether this clicks with you will depend upon your cinematic tastes toward very deliberate films.

THE FEAST often seems to play like some of the work of Lorcan Finnegan but with not so much of an emotional connection. Finnegan will create very well drawn worlds and keep things very measured. He makes us aware of the divide  the worlds of man and the world of nature and he breaks us by revealing time and again that we are not as in control as we think. Finnegan's strength is that he he can be deliberate but yet keep us connected, we are aware that for the grace of god we could be in that circumstance. Unfortunately the creators of the THE FEAST never keep us connected. everything is alien to us. The rich are not like us and the others seem not to be like anyone we know. As with many of the shots looking into the modern country home I always felt outside of the action.

Despite not liking the disconnectedness of the telling, the real disappointment for me was the plot itself. Basically there isn't anything surprising about it. Much too early on, indeed even from the plot synopsis given us, we can sort out where this is going to go. For me I was writing the film to or three scenes ahead of the action and there was a point when I kind of debated turning it off, only staying to see how the ending finally went down.

While not bad its a film that I think is only going to appeal to the art house crowd

DOC NYC 2021 Capsules: WE ARE RUSSIA, CAVIAR CONNECTION and F@CK THIS JOB

 

WE ARE RUSSIA
Portrait of the young people protesting the political situation on Russia despite the danger. The film focuses on a number of people who are supporting jailed Presidential candidate Navalny who is such a pain in the side of Putin that he allegedly had him poisoned.

This is a very good look at the street level protests quietly going on in Russia. We watch as the kids struggle to change minds and are confronted with a brainwashed older population who feel that the United States is behind all of the hatred for Putin. I love that we see the discussions between the two sides, which contain the statement of the pro-Putin people “You don’t have to film me”. Clearly they are afraid of something.  The film doesn’t shy away from anything and as a result we see the danger lurking around anyone who doesn’t play ball with the authorities.

Highly recommended.

THE CAVIAR CONNECTION
A look at the battle for free expression in  Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, and Kazakhstan. The former members of the Soviet Union are perhaps even more oppressive than Russia. Journalists speak of the danger to their lives and how anyone with money can pretty much get away with anything since cash is king.

This is a frightening portrait of the cancerous states in the middle of Asia that are very much a police state of the worst sort. I’ve been reading on the problems with the countries for years because of the problems with problems involving the LGBT communities as well as with problems with their sports (it begins with doping and gets worse).  Now seeing just how bad things are on even more levels is not only more frightening, but also kind of sad since it seems worse than in the bad old days of Joe Stalin.

If you need a reason not to travel to Central Asia this film will give you plenty of reasons.

This is a great film and is very recommended.

F@CK THIS JOB
This is a look at the founding of the independent Russian News channel Dozhd. The channel was started by people who thought that an independent source of news in Putin's Russia would be a good thing. The quickly found out it was not.

In a way this is a surprisingly upbeat and hopeful tale considering the subject matter. This is the because of the Natasha and Sasha who are at the center of the story and who keep the story focused and human even as bad things happen. They tell their story with less gloom and doom then you would expect.  The result is a film that is more involving than if this had been a doom and gloom telling would have been.

I really liked this film. I love that the film shows that Putin hasn't crushed the soul or zombified all of the masses.

Highly recommended.

MESSWOOD (2021) DOC NYC 2021

This is the story of two high schools in MilwaukeeWisconson, the almost all white Shorewood High and the almost all black Messmer High who came together to form one football team that became state champions. Messwood, was hailed as mdel of racial harmony however events threaten to over take them.

This is avery good sports documentary that hits all of th right notes with absolute perfection. Its a film that looks good, moves like the wind and makes you think and feel. It's a film that does exactly what it was desgned to do and does it to perfection.

And that is the only problem with MESSWOOD it feels like a perfect Hollywood feel good blockbuster but in documentary form. While the film has some surprises  the construction is such that you know before hand where the high and low points are going to be  to the oint that you can almost sing along.

I'm not saying this because the film is bad, oh hell no this maybe one of the best and most crowd pleasing films at DOC NYC it's more that as much as I love the film I just wish it wasn't so slick so that I could have some place to hold onto and keep it close to my heart.

QUibble aside MESSWOOD is a great film and worth a look.

LIFE OF CRIME 1984-2020 (2021) DOC NYC 2021

 

The weed of crime bares bitter fruit – The Shadow

LIFE OF CRIME 1984-2020 is a crushing film. It’s the story of three friends over the course of 36 years as they commit crimes, go to prison, become addicted to drugs and die. Its an in your face verité look at three lives on the fringe of society. It’s a sad film that will break your heart. It’s a film about young people who think they have it all figured out who find over time that things are stacked against them.  As the film opens we see how they are thrilled to be making more money than their parents for a few minutes work boosting sheets and home goods. We listen to their plans  for the future and their posturing as having figured things out.  We then watch as it all goes differently  then they thought it would.

This is bracing film about where a life of crime can lead. It’s a dire warning that people should see because it shows clearly that crime doesn’t really lead anywhere. Actually it leads to an autopsy table (that is a warning to those with a weak temperament).  It’s an arc that really hit home for me since my day job brings me into contact with many people who are living similar lives. As a result I can now clearly see how many of them will end up.

I don’t know what to say. What started as a film where I watched in disbelief that they thought they were doing good, turned in in my feeling sorry for them and finally to a deep sadness. This is not a happy tale.

As hard as it is to watch at times LIFE OF CRIME 1984-2020 is a vital and important film and is highly recommended.

The Slow Hustle (2021) DOC NYC 2021

Director Sonja Sohn's THE SLOW HUSTLE is a film of quiet power.The film is the story of the Baltimore Police force, a corruption investigation and the death of officer Sean Suiter which still remains an event with too many questions lft unanswered.

THE SLOW HUSTLE is a film that will leave you wanting to know more. As the film unfolds a lot of questions are raised and lot of them are left unanswered. Part of the problem is that authorities botched things from the get go and even on the most basic level, such as saying which side of the head he was shot in. Nothing was transparent and since Suiter was killed the night before he was to testify about police corruption motives are questionable. Even when the film ended I still wanted to know what happened.

That is not a flaw rather it is testiment to Sohn's filmaking and search for the truth. She doesn't give us what she thinks are the answers she gives us what she and the world are being told are the answers and she is letting us draw our own conclusions. The result is we are left wanting to know more.

What I love abut Sohn's filmmaking is she never telegraphs anything. If you are like me and don't know the story, you are not going to have any idea where this is going to end. Its a puzzle that keeps showing us doors we can walk through up until the final fade out thus keeping us invested until the very end.

This is a great film and very recommended.

DOC NYC 2021 Capsules: NEWTOK, OMARA, CHARM CIRCLE and KRIMES

NEWTOK
Portrait of the Yup’ik who are facing serious danger as climate change is altering their way of life. With the warmer weather their homes which were built on frozen land are now sinking. With the potential loss of their homes, they may have to move, they will have to move away from everything they know.

This is a moving film about a possibly disappearing way of life. Its also a yet another call to arms about what will be lost if climate change isn’t confronted.  While there are any number of similar films being turned out NEWTOK stands out because the film truly connects us to the people on screen. We feel for their plight and we viscerally understand what will be lost if the situation isn’t corrected.

Recommended.

OMARA
Portrait of Omara Portuondo, a Cuban superstar who was billed as the diva of the Buena Vista  Social Club. The reality is that she is so much more.

Absolutely wonderful portrait of a grand lady. Full of music and mirth this is a film that is going to make you fall in love with a great singer. I suspect that as the film ends everyone is going to be hitting iTunes or Amazon in order to get some of her music.

This is a perfect marriage of image and music (rarely has Cuba looked this good) and as such it’s highly recommended.

CHARM CIRCLE
Filmmaker Nira Burstein weaves together a portrait of her family using current footage with film and video shot over the years. It’s a portrait of a broken and somewhat loving family.

This is an almost too intimate portrait of a family unlike any other, and yet kind of like our own. While Burstein’s family didn’t seem like my family at first the more I watched the more I connected. These people are very much like my own in a lot of ways.

This is an excellent slice of life and recommended

KRIMES
This is a look at the artist Jesse Krimes.  As the film opens we watch as Krimes is preparing to unveil a massive work of art he made while in prison and had smuggled out in pieces.  Krimes had never seen the whole work in it’s entirety since then. The film then gives us a portrait of the artist and art.

This is a very good portrait of a man and his art. I had never consciously run across Krimes  before this film and as a result I fell in love with his work. What I liked about the film was that in addition to introducing us to an artist we may not have seen before, it makes a case for the importance of art. Art was what helped Krimes cope with his life and it allowed the people in prison to relate to him as something other than a convict.

Definitely worth a look.

DOC NYC 2021 Capsules: COLORS OF TOBI and GO THROUGH THE DARKNESS,

COLOR OF TOBI
A young man comes out as transgender to his parents. As Tobi goes through the process of making his identity legally, his parents also deal with the changes that the transition brings.

Excellent look at one family’s journey in the wake of one member’s coming out as transgender. What sets this film apart from most films is that the film doesn’t focus just on the person transitioning but the whole family. I have watched many films about people transitioning and in most cases the family is pushed to the side.  Until this film it seems that most filmmakers didn’t care about the families.  Because of the focus this is going to be a film that is going to help many people come to terms with the changes of their loved one have made. 

GO THROUGH THE DARKNESS|
This is a portrait of young Guanglin and his father. Guanglin is a young man who is a champion of Go. He is  a champion despite being blind, thanks to an incredible memory.  His life is nothing except playing the game as he works toward a life as professional Go player.

My reaction to the film is mixed. While I was amused at the start as Guanglin plays in a tournament that will determine his amateur status and is opponents were amazed that he could play with out seeing the board (he uses a special board and pieces that he can touch) my feelings towards it all shifted as I became troubled by the relationship between the father and son. Guanglin is clearly socially backward, really only interacting with his father. At the same time the father is rather creepy since he has pulled his son from school and is insisting that Go is the only thing that he is going to do. In a way I felt dirty since the father is so controlling, I kept wondering why child protective services weren’t involved and realized that it was China. It left me feeling uneasy.

To be honest, this is an interesting story but I’m not sure I need to see it again.

DOC NYC Capsules A Decent Home and Let Me Be Me

 A DECENT  HOME
This is a look at the people struggling to find a place to live who turn to living in mobile homes. The trouble is that since mobile homes many people don't live the land they are on and un the risk of being kicked off as the land is sold for other things.

This is a really good film about a problem that none of us probably ever think about. And even if we do think about those living in trailer parks we see them as lesser people thanks to Hollywood and comedians making way too many jokes about them. This film seeks to right that wrong by explaining what a struggle it is to live in them

Recommended.

LET ME BE ME
This is a great portrait of Kyle Westphal who was diagnosed as having autism when he a boy, well before the current level of awareness. With his parents uncertain of what to do they began to try and figure out what was best for their son. They then began to try a special form of treatment. Thanks to years perseverance and love by her parents Kyle was able to overcome his illness and become a fashion designer.

Marvelous portrait of a young man who was lucky enough to have parents who let their son be who he was and thus was able to go out on his own. It is a triumphant tale of what can happen when parents are willing to do what they feel is best and not simply blindly follow the prevailing thought.

Recommended.

Chocolate Road (2021)

A look at chocolate, specifically not the mass produced chocolate but the more high end lovingly made chocolate.

This is a very good look at chocolate, the people who make it specifically. Maribel Lieberman, Susumu Koyama and Mikkel Friis-Holm, who take s through the whole process of growing cacao beans to refining it and turning it into a delicious confection. It's a film that makes us understand what it takes to actually get a candy on to our plates.

This is the place to go if you ever wanted to know everything there is to know about making chocolate goodies. It's a film that will let you in on all the details of how the sweet stuff is made. It's an eye opening film in a lot of ways since it clues us into the whole chain of events.

Revealing the whole process is both a good thing and a bad thing. It's good because for the first time you will understand how many people  are needed to make your candy. It's a bad thing because these looking for a serious food porn film may not feel the urge to go out and buy everything in their local chocolate shop. I didn’t finish the film and go off and start searching for something chocolate to eat. Normally on the really good food films I go searching for what I had just seen. This film didn’t have that effect. Which is probably good since I could have gone into sugar shock.

If you like chocolate this film is a must.

iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/movie/chocolate-road/id1589086057
 Vimeo on Demand: https://vimeo.com/ondemand/chocolateroad

Julia (2021) DOC NYC 2021

 

Portrait of noted chef Julia Child by the people who knew and loved her.

CNN produced documentary is a hagiographic portrait of a woman who became best known for cooking seemingly unhealthy food we all could enjoy. It’s a film that firmly shows us that Child changed the way the world ate because she made cooking interesting and something we all wanted to do. Its also a moving love story of a woman and her husband who were not just husband and wife but best friends and co-conspirators in enjoying life.

Sadly the film bored me. While I learned a great deal about Child there never were no real ups and downs. We really don’t see anything bad or even questionable other than her feelings about gays before AIDS made her realize she was wrong. It’s not that there couldn’t be a dark side, it’s more that everything is skittles and beer even though there have been some stories of her prickly nature. There also really isn’t any sort of adversity in her tale other than she kind of lost a connection with her father who remained a conservative Republican.

To be honest none of this is bad, but unless you are a huge fan of Child this saccharine portrait is too much of a good thing.

Adrienne (2021) DOC NYC 2021

 

Adrienne is a portrait of writer director and actress Adrienne Shelly by her husband. It’s an attempt by Andy Ostroy to both come to terms with the loss as well as to give their daughter a sense of what her mother’s life was like.

While the film is extremely heart felt and encyclopedic it pains me to report that the film isn’t particularly good. It’s not that the film doesn’t have everything you would want, it does, the problem is that the telling is extremely jumbled. This is a film that bounces around from thing to thing and back again on a train of thought that doesn’t make sense to an outsider. Blame director Ostroy who is clearly way too close to the material.

If you want an example consider that the film is constantly swinging back and forth through discussions of Waitress the musical and the last day of Shelly’s life. While I can understand beginning with the both of them and coming back toward the end, the way the film is structured now  the film bounce back and forth to the subjects all through the film. There is no narrative flow.  The film should build to something, it never does, it just sort of lies there.

I was disappointed.

DOC NYC 2021 Capsules: BOYCOTT and OBJECTS

 

BOYCOTT
Chilling film on the trend in the United States for states to outlaw any sort of boycott of goods and services relating to Israel. Many companies that want to work with various state governments are now prohibited from doing anything outspoken in regard to Israel. If they say or do anything questioning Israel the company/person will be banned from working with the state nominally because the law frames it as being anti-sematic.  In many cases this also prevents them from having any dealings with Palestian companies or organizations. The legislation is often backed by Israeli organizations and introduced by the Christian organizations who are saying they are doing it because the Jews are god’s chosen people.

This the story of  a quiet  squashing of free speech in America in the name of a foreign country. As seen in the film the choices made by many of the people effected by the law is not racism but humanitarian and political, they don’t like how the Israeli government is treating the people of Palestine. As a result the government has decided for them who is in the right.

OBJECTS
In time when everyone is pushing to declutter and get rid of everything we own (some declutterers are so insane I’m surprised they don’t have us getting rid of our homes and families) this is a look at the things we choose to keep and the reasons we do so.

This is a small gem of a film. Where everyone wants to shift to everything digitally. Its so nice that some people want to keep and hold onto things that mean something to them. As is repeated through out the film, the things we keep are a connection to a time when we were happy. They are an actual physical proof that these things happened.

As a packrat myself I was delighted to find other people like me.  For me the objects around me are a living memory of the places I went to and the things I did. When the film was done I wanted to go hug my stuff.

This film is a joy and recommended .

MCCURRY: THE PURSUIT OF COLORS (2021) DOC NYC

Portrait of photographer Steve McCurry who is best known for the picture of an Afghan girl that graced the cover of National Geographic several decades ago. Over the course of the film we follow McCurry as he takes pictures and explains his love of people and the planet.

This is easily one of the most beautiful films of 2021. Its due largely to McCurry's photographs and a cinematographer who duplicates the eye of the subject. The images are what makes this film a must see on a big screen.

The problem is that the rest of the film doesn't match the images. McCurry is a curious man with his own way of seeing things. While he loves the world he seems disconnected and so we feel that way too. It also doesn't help that many sequences feel staged for the camera.  Its clear what we are seeing is set up for the film and as a result the whole affair feels less real

While none of this is bad, it's never great, or perhaps its better to say that nothing other than the images truly soar.

Worth a look.