Category Archives: Documentary

Coming to theatres and to VOD tomorrow, Friday, November 21: THE HOMESTRETCH

Anne de Mare and Kirsten Kelly’s look at the lives of three homeless Chicago teens had its world premiere at Hot Docs this Spring. The doc has gone on to screen at AFI Docs, Citizen Jane, Indie Memphis, Human Rights Watch, and Hot Springs, among others.

de Mare and Kelly’s film opens with the sobering fact that between 2000-3000 youth are among Chicago’s homeless population before zeroing in on just three, Anthony, Kasey, and Roque, whose stories are largely unconnected except for their shared desire to better their situation via education. Technically speaking, none of these subjects is presently homeless – while Anthony and Kasey are no longer able to live in the under-resourced transitional youth program, Belfort House, due to age and curfew violations, respectively, both are set up in subsidized apartments. They continue to struggle, so their housing situation remains relatively insecure, but they at least are within the system and seeking solutions. Roque is far less at risk, however, having found a surrogate family in the form of his saintly teacher and substitute mother, Maria, and her husband and kids. His undocumented status presents a major hurdle, but Maria helps him circumvent this, even going to bat for him to ensure he gets enrolled in college after an initial rejection. His presence is a strange fit in the film, but perhaps is included as a wildly hopeful inspiration that things can get much better. The more outgoing Anthony and Kasey seem to be more appropriate subjects for the topic, as he reckons with job training and the realities of teen fatherhood while on probation, while she struggles to figure out her path, having been rejected by her family for her sexuality. As is often the problem with conventional survey approaches like the one taken here, the viewer is left wondering if the film would have been stronger had it instead focused on one intriguing, indelible character rather than three mildly engaging ones.

New to DVD and VOD this week: LEGENDS OF THE KNIGHT

Brett Culp’s look at the inspirational power of Batman debuted at the San Diego Comic Con this Summer. In addition to other comic convention engagements, the doc has since had scores of benefit screenings around the country.

Culp’s film is not so much about Batman as it is about the influence that character can have on real-world individuals. Forgetting his billions, Bruce Wayne’s story – childhood trauma channelled into a mission to combat crime and serve the public good – in contrast to either Clark Kent’s fantastical background as a super-powered orphan from a destroyed planet or Peter Parker’s accidental bite from a radioactive spider, has a relatively ordinary, relatable core that can resonate with anyone, and that’s what Culp primarily focuses on here. Beyond the love letters to the character offered by Bat franchise film producer Michael Uslan or influential comic book writer/editor Denny O’Neil, the film profiles several ordinary individuals who have theoretically been inspired by the character. Some are quite obvious, such as Petaluma Batman, a college kid who patrols his small California community in a homemade Batman outfit and stages fights with Petaluma Joker to entertain or raise money for charity; or Lenny, a successful businessman who converted his car into a Batmobile and visits sick kids in hospitals around the US dressed up as Batman. Other subjects, however, are too tangentially connected to Bruce Wayne’s alter ego, such as Jill, a young journalist with MS, or Daniel, a young man with one leg, so their inclusion here feels forced. The film’s survey structure and overemphatic score makes this feel a bit long for what it is, but Culp’s overarching idea, that “we are all Batman,” is a likeably earnest, if fairly simple, message. Incidentally, the film is not associated with either DC Comics or Warner Bros, which accounts for its somewhat awkward title, not quite the official Bat-nickname of “The Dark Knight.”

New to DVD this week: FREELOAD

Daniel Skaggs portrait of modern-day freight train riders debuted at Thin Line earlier this year. It has gone on to screen at Big Sky, DocuWest, Docutah, BendFilm, Sydney Underground, SF Docfest, IFF Boston, and Revelation, among others.

Skaggs spent over a year riding the rails, befriending a loose-knit assemblage of young hobos who, in contrast with their famed forebears, took to boxcars not out of a desire to find gainful employment, but instead to drop out of society. Adopting colorful names like Ponyboy, Blackbird, and Dice that reinforce a fantasy world of no responsibilities, the film’s subjects welcome Skaggs, and, by extension, the viewer, fully into their no-frills existence. This immersion simultaneously highlights the freedom of their fringe lifestyle and reins in any romanticism by exposing its gritty, rough, and often messy underbelly. The film itself evinces a matching rough-hewn nature in both its technical and storytelling aspects. Either unable or unwilling to provide a focused structure, the result is episodic, with too many promising characters inhabiting its barely hour-long running time, and none ever quite being fleshed out enough, making this an intriguing but uneven project as a whole.

New to DVD this week: NEXT YEAR JERUSALEM

David Gaynes’ chronicle of a seniors’ tour of Israel bowed at Sarasota last year. It went on to Montclair, and to Jewish fests in Atlanta, Sacramento, and Hartford before a limited theatrical release this past Spring.

I previously wrote about the doc here.