Coming to NYC’s Rooftop Films this Saturday, July 18: THE CHINESE MAYOR
Hao Zhou’s behind-the-scenes exploration of an ambitious politician’s plans for his city premiered at Sundance earlier this year, where it won a special award. It has since gone on to screen at True/False, Seattle, Sydney, AFI Docs, RiverRun, IFFBoston, and the upcoming Traverse City fests.
I previously profiled the doc before Sundance here.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Film Festivals, Recommendations, Sundance
Coming to NYC’s Rooftop Films this Friday, July 17: FIELD NIGGAS
Khalik Allah’s immersive look at life on the Harlem streets made its debut at True/False earlier this year. It has also screened at Sarasota, Maryland, and FID Marseille.
Street photographer Allah trains his camera on the people he runs across at the corner of 125th St and Lexington Ave at night, primarily African Americans, many who speak plainly about using alcohol, drugs, or K2, a popular smokeable synthetic cannabis-like substance, and about a life of poverty in a society that remains unmistakably racist. Aesthetically, Allah makes the unusual choice of disrupting the synchronization of his sound and images – interviews with his subjects play over fragmented, often slow-motion, visuals, never quite synching up – making for an unsettling but somewhat hypnotic effect, at least initially. Within short order, however, this trick, and the film as a whole, feels like an extended, and ultimately repetitive, experiment that hasn’t been fully thought through, netting the same returns at 15 minutes as it does at its full 60 minute running time. Matters are not helped at all by Allah’s running commentary, which grows more intrusive and less interesting as the film proceeds, devolving into self-indulgent semi-mystical philosophizing. It’s unfortunate, as the director clearly has an eye, producing breath-taking moments of unexpected beauty and ugliness within the same frame, and his subjects themselves would seem to have much more of substance to say.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Releases
New to VOD and to select theatres this week: CAFFEINATED
Hanh Nguyen and Vishal Solanki’s exploration of the speciality coffee world debuted at Santa Barbara earlier this year. It has also screened at the Amsterdam Coffee Festival and has had limited theatrical bookings in Germany. FilmBuff now releases it on iTunes, Amazon, Google Play, Xbox, Vudu and all major cable providers, as well as a limited theatrical run.
Focusing on coffee in a comprehensive manner, this film takes viewers around the world, tracing the development of the beverage from the picking of the fruit and cultivation of the bean to its enjoyment by end users in a generally conventional survey approach. Whether accompanying coffee buyers as they visit farmers in coffee producing nations like Nicaragua, interviewing coffee house patrons as they happily wax poetic about their addiction, or learning about the development of micro-roasters from coffee historians, Nguyen and Solanki and their subjects treat coffee with such reverence it borders on the pathological, at least for non-coffee culture audiences. For their target audience, however, they have made a very slick-looking documentary – essentially coffee porn – that will be consumed happily and smoothly.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Releases
Coming to DVD and expanding its VOD availability today, Tuesday, July 14: CAN’T STAND LOSING YOU: SURVIVING THE POLICE
Andy Grieve and Lauren Lazin’s history of The Police from guitarist Andy Summers’ perspective, debuted at DOC NYC in 2012. Additional screenings followed in the Cayman Islands and the Bahamas fests, with a recent theatrical tour prompting the DVD re-release, a Blu-ray debut, and VOD expansion from Vimeo on Demand to also include iTunes and Amazon.
Based on Summers’ 2006 memoir, ONE TRAIN LATER, Grieve and Lazin intercut the musician’s recollections of the trajectory of his career, with his voice-over accompanied by a treasure trove of archival footage from the 1960s-1980s, with more recent footage of The Police’s 2007-2008 reunion tour. While the latter offers fans an opportunity to catch up with the band more or less in the present, the film is at its best when its focused on the past, providing a fascinating behind-the-scenes look at the surprising success of the trio, which, in addition to rare performance clips includes more off-the-cuff clips of early promotional interviews and personal material of Summers’ family life and competing on-the-road life. Although the tensions that led to the dissolution of The Police are mentioned several times, these never quite get the space to breathe on screen, robbing the film of a more dramatic edge. Perhaps even more interesting is the too-brief review of Summers’ very early foray into life as a working musician in the mid 1960s, before he hooked up with Sting and Stewart Copeland.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Releases
Coming to DVD today, Tuesday, July 7, while also expanding its VOD release: 112 WEDDINGS
Doug Block’s reflection on the successes and failures of married life made its bow at Full Frame last year. It also screened at Nantucket, Hot Docs, Sheffield, Melbourne, Traverse City, and at various Jewish fests. In addition to its DVD release, it expands from its initial iTunes release to additional VOD platforms, including Vudu, Amazon, and Google Play.
I previously wrote about the film here.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Recommendations, Releases
Coming to Los Angeles’ ArcLight Documentary Series tomorrow, Tuesday, July 14: (T)ERROR
Lyric R Cabral and David Felix Sutcliffe’s surprising exploration of the work of an FBI informant made its world premiere earlier this year at Sundance, where it won a special jury award. It has gone on to screen at Nantucket, True/False, Hot Docs, Tribeca, Full Frame, IFF Boston, Nashville, and Human Rights Watch, among others.
My pre-Sundance profile of the film may be found here.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Film Festivals, Recommendations, Sundance
Coming to PBS’s American Experience tomorrow, Tuesday, July 14: BLACKOUT
Callie T Wiser’s look back at the tumultuous New York City blackout of 1977 makes its debut on the long-running public television series.
Thirty-eight years ago to the date, on July 13, 1977, a severe lightning strike in Westchester county set off a chain reaction that resulted in a total blackout for virtually all of New York City. In comparison to a similar power failure just twelve years prior, which saw masses of ordinary New Yorkers helping to maintain order and safety, this one became characterized as something more sinister, noted for widespread looting and arson that left long-lasting wounds for many neighborhoods and their residents. Wiser gathers an impressive assemblage of period footage, and draws from the recollections of a range of people who lived through that dark night, from Con Edison employees who were tasked with restoring power and shop owners who saw their businesses ransacked, to police officers and firefighters who faced the thankless job of trying to maintain order in the chaos and neighborhood residents who tried to make sense of it all. Without forgiving the perpetrators, some of the interviewees point out that, rather being primarily a racial issue, as was suggested at the time, the criminality that emerged in some areas were more a reflection of class, a response to the devastating unemployment and reduction in social services that characterized an essentially bankrupt New York City. Through its cogent contextualization of these and other factors, the film underscores this, contrasting recollections of staff at the World Trade Center’s Windows on the World restaurant, which appeased diners during the blackout by offering free champagne, with the spontaneous looting of under-served neighborhoods, carried out not only by career criminals but by first-time offenders, many taking illegal advantage of the absence of social order to steal diapers and food for their families. That there were victims of this behavior is not ignored, of course, as represented by a shop owner who lost hundreds of thousands that evening, and who could not accept that the actions taken, whatever the circumstances, were justified.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Recommendations, Releases
Coming to theatres and VOD today, Friday, July 10: DO I SOUND GAY?
David Thorpe’s exploration of stereotypes and self-acceptance made its debut at Toronto last year. It went on to screen at DOC NYC, Santa Barbara, RiverRun, Montclair, Dallas, Sydney Mardi Gras, IFF Boston, Nashville, Seattle, New Orleans’ Filmorama, Provincetown, Frameline, and BFI Flare, among others.
Reeling from a recent breakup, Thorpe begins a self-examination of a particular quality he dislikes about himself and the larger gay community of which he’s a part: the gay voice. In addition to beginning speech therapy sessions to determine if he can consciously remove some of the identifying vocal mannerisms that so irk him, the director/subject takes to the street for some off the cuff vox pops and visits with friends and celebrities who weigh in on the “problem” with having an effeminate voice. While on the surface, this quest might initially seem like self-involved therapy, Thorpe wisely moves beyond the strictly personal to begin to unpack the larger societal constructs at play, from a subconscious misogyny that punishes men for daring to sound like women, to a related homophobia, both internalized by gay men against themselves, and propagated by straight people eager to maintain some strict division of appropriateness by gender and sexuality. Maintaining a lighter tone throughout, the film opens up a dialogue that proves insightful and accessible to LGBT and straight audiences alike.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Recommendations, Releases
Coming to theatres today, Friday, July 10: SLINGSHOT
Paul Lazarus’ profile of an inventor’s efforts to make clean water available around the world debuted at Cinequest last year. Other fest berths have included Cleveland, Florida, Heartland, Woodstock, Nashville, and Denver, among others.
Lazarus’ film focuses on Dean Kamen, best-known as the creator of the Segway, and, contrary to urban legend, not the fatal victim of an accident involving the slow-moving personal transport device. The humanitarian inventor has a far more impressive track record, however, bringing devices to the marketplace that have saved countless lives, including the insulin pump and a portable dialysis machine. He’s now obsessed with his newest mission, finding a way to bring his titular water purification device to developing nations, where it can literally mean the difference between life and death. Despite the earnest Kamen’s self-deprecating comments, the film too often feels like a promotional tool or hagiography and lacks a compelling narrative arc to help it transcend its workmanlike approach.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Releases
Now available on VOD: THE WOLFPACK
Crystal Moselle’s look at a sheltered family raised on films made its bow at Sundance this year, where it claimed the US Documentary Grand Jury Prize. It went on to screen at Nantucket, Cleveland, Full Frame, Sarasota, Tribeca, San Francisco, and Seattle, among others. Magnolia now makes the film available on VOD, exclusively on iTunes.
My pre-Sundance profile of the doc may be found here.
Filed under Documentary, Film, Film Festivals, Recommendations, Releases, Sundance
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