Category Archives: Film

Coming to theatres today, Friday, September 25: SLEEPLESS IN NEW YORK

Christian Frei’s look at heartbreak debuted at Visions du Réel last year. Other fests included Hot Docs, DOK.fest Munich, Planete+ Doc, Docville, EDOC, Locarno, Dokufest, DocPoint, BAFICI, and ZagrebDox.

Wishing to explore the phenomenon of lovesickness, Frei solicits the recently lovelorn via street flyers, finding three people more than happy to share their obsession on camera: Alley, rejected just days ago by her boyfriend of several years; Michael, whose longtime live-in girlfriend dumped him two weeks ago; and Rosey, who’s finally realizing the one-night fling at the Mermaid Parade she had with an out-of-town lothario isn’t going to lead to anything. While the hopelessly hipster Rosey is perhaps the most insufferable of the three, all of them are awash in such rampant self-absorption that it’s difficult to watch. Certainly, we’ve all been there before, but few of us have broadcast it to the world quite so pointedly. Luckily, Frei mitigates this cringeworthiness to some extent by incorporating the views of the often insightful Professor Helen Fisher, a biological anthropologist who has studied the impact of love – and its loss – on the brain, and who refers to it at one point as a “horrible addiction.”

Coming to theatres and to iTunes tomorrow, Friday, September 25: MISSION TO LARS

William Spicer and James Moore’s chronicle of a rock pilgrimage made its debut in UK theatres back in 2012. Festival screenings followed at CPH:DOX, Reykjavik’s Docs&Shorts, Brisbane, and East End, among other smaller events.

Tom is a severely autistic British man who lives in a residential care facility and is a huge Metallica fan. All he wants is to meet drummer Lars Ulrich, prompting his siblings, Kate, the doc’s producer and narrator, and Will, the film’s director, to try to realize his dream by taking him on a road trip across America, allowing them to have some long overdue family bonding along the way. While sympathetic to Will’s condition, Fragile X Syndrome, which manifests in learning impairment, obsession, and panic attacks, Kate and Will seem to have only the most rudimentary connection to their brother, making their awkward attempts to relate to him at times very grating. Still, one of the film’s goals is spreading awareness about the learning disabled, so there’s some potential worth in the audience learning from their mistakes. While the film relies far too much on tired road trip conventions and manufactured suspense, and stretches its thin premise nearly to the breaking point, a warmth registers, particularly when Ulrich finally enters the picture.

Coming to theatres across the US for a special one-night only screening tonight, Thursday, September 24 and coming to iTunes tomorrow, Friday, September 25: UNBRANDED

Phillip Baribeau’s tale of men and mustangs made its bow at Hot Docs, where it picked up an audience award. Screenings have followed at Mountainfilm at Telluride, Sedona, and Rhode Island. Following tonight’s special screening event, the film will open for limited theatrical runs in several cities this weekend and over the next few weeks.

Baribeau’s well-shot scenic exploration of the American West ostensibly seeks to draw attention to the plight of our nation’s wild horses and the controversial policies in place to manage their population. That’s all well and good, but the method by which this issue is addressed in his feature debut is hopelessly contrived: Four recent college grads adopt several mustangs and set out to ride them from the Mexican border all the way up through America to Canada, all to somehow prove the horses’ worth. Instead, this arbitrary, manufactured premise simply serves as an excuse for a random, reality TV-styled “adventure” shared by a group of privileged white men, with occasional awkward insertions of wild horse factoids. While pretty to look at, and offering a pro-horse message that is resonating with audiences, its mash-up of road trip and issue doc is ultimately inelegant and, one suspects, less successful than had the filmmaker simply picked one genre to explore.