Category Archives: Documentary

Coming to VOD today, Tuesday, May 13: SIGN PAINTERS

Faythe Levine and Sam Macon’s exploration of a once ubiquitous artisanal craft debuted at a special event in Washington DC’s Renwick Gallery last year. Festival screenings have included Thin Line, Leeds, Milwaukee, and Atlantic. Bond/360 partners with FilmBuff to release the doc on iTunes, Amazon Instant Video, blinkbox, Google Play, PlayStation, Vudu, and Xbox.

Levine and Macon take a cross-country survey of the modern state of hand-painted design, focusing on sign painters who have persevered despite the decline in demand for their particular skills in a culture that sadly preferences cheap, computer-enabled, one-size-fits-all work. Given their approach, few individual painters really leave a huge impression, but their vibrant work certainly does – a striking contrast to the poorly designed and constructed vinyl signs that have driven many out of business since the rise of graphic design computer programs and other technology. Recognizing the recent resurgence of interest in artisanal craftsmanship, the filmmakers are able to bring in a sense of hope to the proceedings, however, with painters noting that individuals and even corporations like The Gap have started knocking on their doors, seeking the authenticity that their work conveys, while also showing viewers a quick peek at the next generation, practicing their brushstrokes in an intensive lettering class. Not surprisingly, the doc features some impressive title and credits sequences, in addition to showcasing the handiwork of the many craftsmen and women interviewed.

Coming to DVD tomorrow, Tuesday, May 13: IS THE MAN WHO IS TALL HAPPY? AN ANIMATED CONVERSATION WITH NOAM CHOMSKY

Michel Gondry’s thought-provoking tête-à-tête with the acclaimed linguist debuted at DOC NYC last year. Other festival stops included Berlin, Sydney, and Milan, while the doc enjoyed a theatrical and VOD release in November.

I previously wrote about the film upon its release here.

Coming to HBO today, Monday, May 12: THE (DEAD MOTHERS) CLUB

Carlye Rubin and Katie Green’s exploration of coping with the death of a mother debuted at Florida’s Silver Springs fest last month. It has also screened at Sarasota and the Santa Fe, Catskill Mountains, and Crossroads fests prior to its cable debut.

Rubin and Green’s project elucidates the complex feelings and sense of loss experienced by women whose mothers died in their daughters’ adolescence or earlier. Signaled by its title, the film aims to show the commonality between disparate women, who become, as executive producer and interview subject Rosie O’Donnell notes, the unwilling members of an unofficial and often unspoken club through this life-changing experience – one that carries significant import in the rest of their lives. The filmmakers profile three younger woman – a high school senior weighing college options, an artist experiencing pregnancy for the first time, and a new mother who fears she carries the same gene that resulted in her mother’s breast cancer – while offering the reflections of three older, celebrity viewpoints – O’Donnell, Molly Shannon, and Jane Fonda – who all shared this early trauma. By its nature, this split focus means that the viewer only gets a small sense of any one subject. While they’re all sympathetic figures, and not to detract from the reality of their loss, there’s one subject too many among the younger women – Ginger, the artist, provides some visual variety through her artwork, but otherwise feels the most forced in being included here, with at least one section of her story so focused on her work that the connection to her mother is completely absent. In contrast, each of the celebrities, largely because they are older and have had decades to work through their loss, prove more enlightening and affecting.

Coming to theatres today, Friday, May 9: DAMNATION

Travis Rummel and Ben Knight’s exploration of the environmental impact of dam-building premiered earlier this year at SXSW, where it won an audience award. Its fest circuit has included Full Frame, Washington DC’s Environmental fest, and the upcoming DOXA and SF Green fests.

Focused on what environmental activists view as the over-damming of America, Rummel and Knight’s film looks at the growing movement to demolish superfluous or obsolete dams, largely, it’s argued here, to allow for the return of natural spawning cycles for salmon. Beyond that legitimate concern, the filmmakers speak to a range of others affected in various ways by the obstruction of waterways – naturalists, marine biologists, watersport enthusiasts, and Native American communities who have historically been displaced by hydroelectric development. Featuring expert lensing and impassioned participants, the film successfully serves as an environmental rallying cry, but where it shows weakness is in the inclusion of the filmmakers within the film. Knight’s narration is largely unnecessarily, and distractingly personal, while a sequence in which the filmmakers risk arrest by attempting to kayak through a theoretical recreational passage of the Snake Rivery dam adds a manufactured Yes Men/Morgan Spurlock/Michael Moore-like element without need – especially when they already have access to far more interesting subjects who have engaged in more dynamic acts of civil disobedience, such as Earth First’s Mikal Jakubal.