Category Archives: Documentary

New to DVD this week: THIS AIN’T NO MOUSE MUSIC!

Chris Simon and Maureen Gosling’s profile of a curmudgeonly record label owner made its bow at SXSW in 2013. Screenings followed at Hot Docs, Mill Valley, Margaret Mead, and Hot Springs Doc, among several others.

I previously wrote about the film out of Hot Docs here.

Coming to VOD today, Tuesday, March 10: BITE SIZE

Corbin Billings’ look at childhood obesity debuted at Cinequest last year, winning a jury award. It will also screen at the upcoming TIFF Kids fest. BOND/360 now releases the doc on VOD exclusively via Vimeo.

Billings’ film offers a survey of the causes and consequences of unhealthy eating by sharing the stories of four American youth of diverse backgrounds, ages 11-13: Davion, who tries to use his size to join the football team even as he struggles with diabetes and to be in shape; Emily, who faces setbacks after a successful (though costly) experience at weight loss camp; Moy, whose sedentary videogaming concerns his parents; and KeAnna, who is encouraged to stay active through her love of dance. Highlighting the important role family eating habits play in shaping children’s own choices, some of the subjects’ family members or adult role models are also profiled, most notably Moy’s – his mother takes responsibility for changing the kinds of foods she prepares, while his father owns up to his own shortcomings after a health scare. While the film could have shed one of the characters and fleshed out the others a bit more – KeAnna in particular seems more peripheral here than the school counselor who organizes her dance team – it does succeed in presenting several straightforward case studies that demonstrate the realities of childhood obesity, and steps that can be taken to combat it.

Coming to PBS’s America ReFramed tomorrow, Tuesday, March 10: LOOKS LIKE LAURY, SOUNDS LIKE LAURY

Pamela Hogan’s chronicle of the loss of a close friend makes its debut on the WORLD Channel tomorrow. The screening is part of the Strength of Women, a monthlong programming series in recognition of Women’s History Month.

Hogan, working in partnership with producer Connie Shulman, tells the poignant story of their friend Laury Sacks, a wife, mother, and sometime character actress, who suddenly and inexplicably begins losing her words. The once lively, quick-witted New Yorker soon finds herself frustratingly unable to speak coherently, putting an emotional drain on family, friends, and Laury herself. Even an eventual diagnosis – fronto-temporal dementia – offers little relief, as the neurological condition remains under-researched and untreatable. Shot over the course of a year, just as the disease takes hold, Hogan’s simple but touching film offers an intimate look at a woman’s attempts to reckon with the unthinkable – recognizing the fundamental change her condition forces on her very sense of self, but maddeningly being unable to articulate it to the outside world.

Coming to VOD today, Friday, March 6: MY OWN MAN

David Sampliner’s personal exploration of manhood made its bow at Tribeca last year. It has gone on to screen at the San Francisco and Boston Jewish fests, Big Eddy, and LA’s ArcLight Documentary series. The doc now comes to VOD exclusively via Netflix.

At 40, filmmaker David Sampliner learns he will soon become a father to a baby boy, a prospect that should fill him with pride and joy, but instead brings on an existential crisis, reawakening a long-seated anxiety about his own sense of masculinity. He’s decidedly not an alpha male, as unequivocally confirmed by not only his close male friends – who self-assuredly are – but by his siblings and parents. David’s father, in particular, seems to serve as the filmmaker’s foil: A matter-of-fact, no-nonsense 1950s style father, a retired, successful surgeon who is in excellent shape despite his advanced age, in contrast to his more sensitive, empathic, and slightly out-of-shape son, a definite follower, not a leader. David’s highly personal film follows his at times strained and cringe-worthy efforts to get in touch with his masculinity – participating in mens’ groups, taking up hunting, working a voice coach, and hitting the gym – while also trying to understand just why his supposed lack of traditionally “manly” traits upsets him so much. While suffering from the typical excesses of first-person docs, including a surfeit of narration and a general self-indulgence, Sampliner’s film does speak to our society’s self-imposed stunted sense of masculinity and its limits, and how these in turn do damage to men’s conception of self.

New to DVD and VOD this week: ILYA AND EMILIA KABAKOV: ENTER HERE

Amei Wallach’s portrait of a pair of influential Russian conceptual artists made its debut at the Moscow Biennale in 2013. It screened at NYC’s Film Forum, and also was included in events such as the Vancouver International Film Festival and Montreal’s Festival of Films on Art.

Wallach’s ambitious but flawed film ostensibly focuses on a massive retrospective of the titular husband and wife team’s work held in 2008 in Moscow, but constantly undermines itself by overreaching. While biographical details are essential for an artistic team that is likely not well-known outside of the art world cognoscenti, these too frequently are presented in utterly conventional ways that rob the energy and interest in the subjects and their intriguing work – the construction of multiple, complex life-size installations in various locations around the Russian capital, the first time the pair have worked in their native country since they left the USSR in the late 1980s. Supposed creative flourishes just end up looking cheap, such as the unfortunate repetitive use of gauzy superimposed talking heads over random scenes, subtitles which snake around the screen in different spots, the distracting use of dubbing vs subtitling for some subjects for no discernible reason, the overdramatic enacted voiceover of letters from Ilya’s mother, and sweeping shots of the artwork that barely allow viewers a chance to take any of it in. While Ilya and the strangely sidelined Emilia have clearly had a fascinating career – and one whose intersection with the social, artistic, and political history of Russia lend it significant weight – the film seems a missed opportunity to explore it.