Category Archives: Film

Coming to theatres today, Friday, June 24: YARN

Director Una Lorenzen and co-directors Heather Millard and Thordur Jonsson’s profile of artists working in an unusual medium had its world premiere at Göteborg this year. Screenings have followed at SXSW, Newport Beach, and Iceland’s Skjaldborg Doc fest.

Neither attempting a comprehensive overview nor an in-depth study of any particular artist, Lorenzen, Millard, and Jonsson instead offer a survey of a handful of creatives who utilize yarn – or at least the techniques of crochet and knitting with different materials – in their craft. Spanning several countries, and ranging from street art to gallery shows to experimental circus acts, the film, as with most surveys, stretches itself a bit thin without ever deeply engaging with some of the intriguing issues it broaches. Some artists, like Icelandic-born, eventually Cuban-based Tinna Thorudottir Thorvaldsdottir briefly speaks about the lack of respect shown to so-called “women’s work” – practical craftwork like knitting which often has served as an economic necessity for many households – while Japanese-born Canadian textile artist Toshiko Horiuchi MacAdam notes how her work evolved out of gallery settings into public playgrounds – another domain not traditionally afforded high-art status. Had the film focused more on these artists and considered these concepts in greater detail, rather than expanding to less interesting strands like the work of Cirkus Cirkör, the resulting tapestry might have been more solidly constructed, not just visually inventive.

Coming to VOD tomorrow, Friday, June 24: MAN VS SNAKE: THE LONG AND TWISTED TALE OF NIBBLER

Andrew Seklir and Tim Kinzy’s story of persistence debuted at Fantastic Fest last year. Other screenings have included Florida, Calgary Underground, Portland, Glasgow, Tallgrass, and Twin Cities. FilmBuff now releases the doc on various VOD platforms.

In the early ’80s, after more than two days of continual game play, teenager Tim McVey became a minor celebrity in the then-nascent world of gaming when he became the first player to ever score over a billion points in the arcade game Nibbler, which sees players navigating an ever-growing snake around a maze. Unsurprisingly, McVey soon faded into obscurity, eventually marrying and becoming an average working stiff in Iowa. When Seklir and Kinzy’s story opens, it’s been 25 years since his record – still standing, though disputed by an unverified higher score from a teenager in Italy less than a year after it was set – McVey is challenged to reach a billion on Nibbler again by Dwayne Richard, the Canadian “bad boy” of retro gaming. This sets off a series of yearly attempts by McVey to prove to himself that he can reclaim his past glory. The filmmakers assemble a number of subjects, some familiar from other gaming docs – notably the undisputed champion of the subgenre, KING OF KONG – and generally borrow much from that earlier film’s playbook, making for a serviceable, if generally derivative, entry in the field. Nibbler itself, and watching the gamers make their attempts, don’t make for the most compelling visuals, so some supplemental animation helps to liven things up a bit.

Coming to theatres tomorrow, Friday, June 24: MISCONCEPTION

Jessica Yu’s re-examination of myths around overpopulation debuted at Tribeca in 2014. Other fest berths have included IDFA, AFI Docs, Sedona, and Seattle’s Women in Cinema, among others.

Working from the findings of master statistician Hans Rosling, who has been debunking popular beliefs about out-of-control population growth at TED Talks and other forums for some time, Yu profiles three individuals in a microcosmic exploration of the theme, which ultimately rests on access to family planning and reproductive rights for women. Noting that 80% of the world demonstrates sustainable reproduction – essentially parents replacing themselves by having an average of two children – the film focuses on the other 20%: Cases where the population rate is too low, such as China and its once-longstanding one-child policy; or too high, in typically underdeveloped regions, where women still often bear a large number of children. After a teaser about governmental policies that incentivize couples to either procreate (in Russia) or to become sterilized (in India) – depending on population needs – Yu breaks her film into three discrete chapters. The first focuses on a Chinese man who is desperate to marry before he turns 30; the second, on a Canadian woman whose zealotry against abortion leads her to lobby developing nations to resist family planning policies; and the third, on a Ugandan journalist who profiles lost and abandoned children. Combined with often unnecessary narration from Kyra Sedgwick, this structure makes the project feel more suited to episodic broadcast than a fully-realized feature, despite the intriguing nature of Rosling’s data and the overarching subject matter.

New to DVD and VOD this week: THE BLACK JACKET

Ryan Simon’s profile of a gang intervention program makes its debut this week. In addition to DVD, it comes to VOD and digital download via Virgil Films.

Set in South Central LA, Simon’s observational film follows three men involved with PCITI, a grassroots program that aims to interrupt gang violence by enabling former gang members and other community members to take an active role in intervention. The program director, Aquil Basheer, is a former Black Panther who has been successful at getting rival gangs to set aside their turf wars to participate in the program. Reynaldo is a graduate of PCITI, who puts the lessons learned into practice as an interventionist in his community. James is a member of the latest PCITI class, a young man who is eager to find an alternative to gang life. While somewhat of a rough-hewn production, the film does a good job of balancing its three subjects and their three different perspectives on the admirable program and its various challenges.