Coming to VOD today, Tuesday, December 16: THE JOE SHOW
Randy Murray’s revealing look at the infamous Sheriff Joe Arpaio debuted at the Sedona International Film Festival this Winter. It has also screened at Hot Docs, Phoenix, DocuWest, Las Vegas, and Poland’s American Film Festival, among others. FilmBuff now releases the film on VOD platforms including iTunes, Amazon Instant Video, Xbox, PlayStation, Vudu, and Google Play.
Since 1992, Arpaio has spent his time as the sheriff of Arizona’s Maricopa County seeking publicity, and his public relations director Lisa Allen and he are more than happy to relive past press coups and celebrate themselves in front of Murray’s camera, the sheriff even allowing himself to be coaxed into karaoke numbers to bookend the film. As already signaled by the film’s title, these badly crooned songs underscore what’s at Arpaio’s core: a desire to be in the spotlight, no matter what – good or bad. Murray cannily constructs his film at first to seem to be more-or-less a puff piece, allowing Arpaio space to make a joke of the stunts he’s pulled as harmless or entertaining, and giving more screen time to someone who would likely shrivel up and vanish if the media stopped indulging him. Allen, for her part, treats her extensive interviews as chummy, reality TV confessionals, reveling in how great a job she’s done for Arpaio, and obnoxiously asking “So what is the downside, exactly?” to their media-hungry antics. As the portrait proceeds, however, critical voices become stronger, and demonstrate exactly what that downside is as they reveal Arpaio and his office’s abuses of power, from racial profiling in the targeting of undocumented immigrants to failing to investigate hundreds of sex crimes, to prisoner deaths through cruel treatment and the systematic intimidation of political opponents. Adopting a “tough on crime” approach not because it’s a deeply-considered philosophy to matters of law enforcement but instead because it’s what will get him attention and, in turn, popular support, Arpaio emerges not just as a reprehensible, self-serving public figure, but as a deeply cynical, amoral one, more than happy to play around with serious issues that hurt real people in the desperate pursuit of celebrity.
what (not) to doc 