Category Archives: Documentary

Coming to VOD tomorrow, Tuesday, June 12:
GAMECHANGERS: DREAMS OF BLIZZCON

Director:
John Keating

Premiere:
DreamHack Austin 2018

About:
A look at the lives of two professional StarCraft II players as they prepare for an eSports grand championship.

In South Korea, the popularity of online strategy games like World of Warcraft reached a fever pitch with the release of the games StarCraft and its sequel, spawning a subculture of gaming in Internet cafes and the emergence of eSports. Skilled players like Jang Min-Chul – known as MC – were able to earn enough money playing to become professional gamers. Keating’s film follows MC and younger player Mun Seong Won – better known as MMA – as they contend with the ups and downs of their competitive sport, as well as personal drama behind the scenes, such as impending mandatory military service that threatens to derail a once-promising career. While the film provides basic information to clue in a non-gaming viewer about StarCraft II, the extensive game play shown on screen is virtually incomprehensible at the speed at which these champions play, making for long, repetitive, confusing, and frankly boring stretches of time that detract from the more compelling personal issues that the protagonists face.

Coming to theatres tomorrow, Thursday, June 7:
TO A MORE PERFECT UNION

Director:
Donna Zaccaro

Premiere:
Woodstock 2017

Select Festivals:
Nashville, Rocky Mountain Women’s, Inside Out, LGBT fests in Boston and Miami

About:
The decades-long love between a lesbian couple serves to revisit the story of marriage equality in the US.

Zaccaro’s hour-long film focuses on Edith Windsor and Thea Spyer, a couple whose story was already told in 2009’s EDIE & THEA: A VERY LONG ENGAGEMENT by filmmakers Susan Muska and Greta Olafsdottir. As recounted there, Edie and Thea, who met in the early 1960s, finally married in 2007, after decades as community activists. Covering much of the same territory for its background about their lives and the saga of same sex marriage, this film continues their story after Thea passed away in 2009. Facing estate taxes because her marriage rights were not recognized by the federal government, Edie took to the courts, ultimately facing off against DOMA in the case which lends this film its subtitle and which overturned that shortsighted, discriminatory law. While Edie is without question a pioneer and a hero, this project unfortunately feels like a bit of an also-ran given the familiarity of her story from the previous film and that of the defeat of DOMA from various docs on the subject of same sex marriage in recent years.