Category Archives: Film

Coming to DVD and VOD tomorrow, Tuesday, June 2: SMILING THROUGH THE APOCALYPSE – ESQUIRE IN THE ’60S

Tom Hayes’ profile of his editor father had its world premiere at Palm Springs in 2013. Other fest play included Riverrun, Newport Beach, and Palm Beach.

Between 1963 and 1973, Harold Hayes put an indelible mark on Esquire magazine, most notably by championing the style that became known as New Journalism, wooing notable writers – as well as promising new talents – and giving them the creative freedom to incorporate fictional techniques into their non-fiction writing. His son’s film attempts to function both as a portrait of the editor that finally gives him his due and as a personal reflection of a father. Unfortunately, while he offers a steady stream of anecdotes from an impressive assemblage of interview subjects – from Tom Wolfe and Gay Talese to Nora Ephron and Gore Vidal – that speak to the elder Hayes’ savvy and innovative risk taking, the director fails to make any headway with the personal or familial, making the viewer wonder why he even bothered to include what little is here. This ill-fitting aspect, in addition to weak narration, weaker still enacted voice-over, and an irksome score, detracts from what’s otherwise a loose, diverting, but at times intriguing survey of the best the magazine had to offer under Hayes’ tenure.

Coming to select theatres and simultaneously being released on DVD and VOD today, Friday, May 29: THE TRUE COST

Andrew Morgan’s investigation into the not-so-hidden costs of cheap, disposable fashion makes its debut via limited theatrical engagements in New York City and Los Angeles, with direct-to-consumer access via its website and VOD platforms.

Taking as his subject “fast fashion,” the corollary to “fast food” – quick, cheap, and readily available for consumption, and just as easily tossed out after a few months – Morgan looks at the dangerous impact of the ridiculously profitable business model used by chains like H&M, Top Shop, Zara, and Forever 21. Droning on in an intermittent, weakly delivered narration, the director offers a broad survey of factors that help keep clothing cheap, but in the process exploit workers and farmers, damage the environment, and delude the masses into thinking they’re well-off while instead contributing to their own financial indebtedness. More of an emphatic, well-meaning advocacy piece than a well-constructed project, Morgan’s film doesn’t offer any revelations, nor any practical large-scale solutions – while one of his interview subjects faults capitalism itself for privileging profits over people, in the absence of overthrowing the world’s dominant economic system, the best that the documentary really seems to offer is the desire for a vague “revolution of values” to take place so that we collectively stop treating people like things.