Category Archives: Documentary

Coming to DVD today, Tuesday, September 16: BURT’S BUZZ

Jody Shapiro’s profile of Burt’s Bees unlikely figurehead debuted at Toronto last year. It went on to screen at San Francisco, Ashland, Seattle, Panama, Wisconsin, Santa Barbara, and Sedona, among others.

I included the doc in my Toronto coverage here.

Coming to DVD today, Tuesday, September 16 and already released on VOD earlier this month: EVERGREEN: THE ROAD TO LEGALIZATION

Riley Morton’s exploration of Washington State’s path to marijuana legalization bowed at last year’s Seattle International Film Festival. It went on to screen at Spokane and Bermuda Docs, and to enjoy a limited theatrical release this Summer.

I covered the doc upon its theatrical release here.

Coming to VOD tomorrow, Tuesday, September 16: AI WEIWEI: THE FAKE CASE

Andreas Johnsen’s chronicle of the controversial artist’s continuing clashes with Chinese authorities premiered at IDFA last year. Screenings have followed at Hot Docs, One World, Istanbul, Tempo, Tampere, and DocsBarcelona, among others. It now comes to iTunes, Amazon Instant Video, Google Play, and Vudu.

I previously wrote about the doc upon its theatrical release here.

Coming to VOD tomorrow, Tuesday, September 16: STARRING ADAM WEST

James Tooley’s tribute to the iconic star of the 1960s BATMAN TV show debuted at the Sun Valley Film Festival last year. It has also screened at the Napa Valley and San Luis Obispo film festivals. FilmBuff now releases the doc across VOD platforms.

From being, for a time, the biggest star of the small screen to a long stretch as a typecast actor who had to make car show appearances to support his family, Adam West has been run through Hollywood’s gauntlet. Despite a resurgence in his career, thanks to opportunities presented by now-grown childhood fans, like a regular role on FAMILY GUY, many still view the genial actor as a has-been. His biggest fans, like LA’s KROQ host Ralph Garman, feel he hasn’t been given his due, as signaled by his lack of a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Garman’s quest to correct this slight, working with West’s daughter, Nina, serves as an occasional, and frankly not very engaging, thread in Tooley’s film, which lends the title a double meaning. The bulk of the doc consists of West recounting his career, intercut with scenes from his present day activities, from convention appearances to FAMILY GUY voice recording studio sessions. It’s generally a workmanlike but breezy treatment that will appeal to the actor’s legion of fans without being particularly memorable.

Coming to theatres today, Friday, September 12: I AM ELEVEN

Genevieve Bailey’s exploration of the world from the perspective of pre-adolescents bowed at the Melbourne International Film Festival in 2011, where it won an audience award. It has screened extensively since, making stops at Newport Beach, Cleveland, Stockholm, Montclair, Sao Paulo, and at several children’s fests.

As she explains at the outset of her film, Bailey, faced with a particularly difficult period in her life, looked backward to when she was eleven years old, a time when life was full of possibility and not yet tempered by the jadedness of adolescence. Taking inspiration and perhaps using it as a form of therapy, she set out on a trip around the world, visiting fifteen countries and interviewing countless tweens on a wide variety of topics, from love to racism, the environment to the future. Speaking directly to her camera, responses from more than 20 of these kids are assembled here. While some of the eleven-year-olds are memorable (notably the possibly autistic Billy), many of them, at the risk of sounding like an old curmudgeon, simply are not. There are just too many of them, offering too many essentially similar comments, in what ultimately feels like an extended vox pop segment. It’s understandable that festival audiences have embraced Bailey’s film – despite some early comments on bullying, it’s relentlessly feel-good and ultimately harmless – but at its heart it’s an overlong survey that offers the viewer little opportunity to truly connect with its parade of subjects – and I’m generally not a fan of survey approaches. Very late in the film – too late, with less than 10 minutes left – Bailey revisits a handful of the kids at a variety of older ages to demonstrate how quickly they’ve changed as adolescence colors their perceptions. It’s this brief sequence that seems to have led some viewers to make inapt comparisons to Michael Apted’s UP series. Perhaps if Bailey’s film had narrowed its perspective to far fewer subjects and instead allotted more time a to revisit them later in life, the reference could be justified, and might have yielded something more revelatory than what’s here – an acceptable, family-friendly documentary that offers surface insight into the experiences of preteens, but no real surprises.