Category Archives: Documentary

Coming to theatres and to iTunes tomorrow, Friday, September 25: MISSION TO LARS

William Spicer and James Moore’s chronicle of a rock pilgrimage made its debut in UK theatres back in 2012. Festival screenings followed at CPH:DOX, Reykjavik’s Docs&Shorts, Brisbane, and East End, among other smaller events.

Tom is a severely autistic British man who lives in a residential care facility and is a huge Metallica fan. All he wants is to meet drummer Lars Ulrich, prompting his siblings, Kate, the doc’s producer and narrator, and Will, the film’s director, to try to realize his dream by taking him on a road trip across America, allowing them to have some long overdue family bonding along the way. While sympathetic to Will’s condition, Fragile X Syndrome, which manifests in learning impairment, obsession, and panic attacks, Kate and Will seem to have only the most rudimentary connection to their brother, making their awkward attempts to relate to him at times very grating. Still, one of the film’s goals is spreading awareness about the learning disabled, so there’s some potential worth in the audience learning from their mistakes. While the film relies far too much on tired road trip conventions and manufactured suspense, and stretches its thin premise nearly to the breaking point, a warmth registers, particularly when Ulrich finally enters the picture.

Coming to theatres across the US for a special one-night only screening tonight, Thursday, September 24 and coming to iTunes tomorrow, Friday, September 25: UNBRANDED

Phillip Baribeau’s tale of men and mustangs made its bow at Hot Docs, where it picked up an audience award. Screenings have followed at Mountainfilm at Telluride, Sedona, and Rhode Island. Following tonight’s special screening event, the film will open for limited theatrical runs in several cities this weekend and over the next few weeks.

Baribeau’s well-shot scenic exploration of the American West ostensibly seeks to draw attention to the plight of our nation’s wild horses and the controversial policies in place to manage their population. That’s all well and good, but the method by which this issue is addressed in his feature debut is hopelessly contrived: Four recent college grads adopt several mustangs and set out to ride them from the Mexican border all the way up through America to Canada, all to somehow prove the horses’ worth. Instead, this arbitrary, manufactured premise simply serves as an excuse for a random, reality TV-styled “adventure” shared by a group of privileged white men, with occasional awkward insertions of wild horse factoids. While pretty to look at, and offering a pro-horse message that is resonating with audiences, its mash-up of road trip and issue doc is ultimately inelegant and, one suspects, less successful than had the filmmaker simply picked one genre to explore.

Coming to DVD today, Tuesday, September 22: THAT SUGAR FILM

Damon Gameau’s experiment on sugar’s impact on health premiered at IDFA last year. Since then it has screened at Edinburgh, Seattle, New Zealand, San Francisco Green, Bentonville, and Encounters, among other events.

Like so many other food and health-focused docs of the past decade, Gameau’s is a shameless knock-off of Morgan Spurlock’s SUPER SIZE ME. Instead of McDonald’s, the Aussie filmmaker/human guinea pig tackles a more insidious culprit: sugar. And not just in the obvious taboo forms like confectionaries, ice cream, and the like, but in foods that are marketed to the consumer as healthy but are actually packed with sugar. Long weaned off of refined sugars, he sets out to consume the supposed average sugar intake of his fellow Australians, a staggering 40 teaspoons a day, for two months, while maintaining his regular exercise regimen. As is de rigueur in this doc sub-genre, he consults doctors to obtain a record of his baseline health as well as nutritionists and other vague experts to get their take on the insanity of his plan. Surprise, surprise, he gains weight, suffers worrisome health consequences, and has apparently proven the deleterious affects of the oh-so-sweet toxin on the human body. But while a viewer might question some of the science, the experts’ qualifications, and their conclusions, Gameau presents everything at face value, making the entire proceedings feel oversimplified and perhaps best suited for a younger, uncritical audience who could certainly benefit from the idea of eating in moderation, and would likely be drawn to the often over-the-top special effects and animation employed here. For his part, while fulfilling the role of on-screen host gamely, frequently exposing his growing belly and dancing around in his underwear like a fool, Gameau takes things a step too far in the narcissism department with an ill-advised final music video.