Category Archives: Film

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.

Coming to theatres today, Wednesday, May 7: BREASTMILK

Dana Ben-Ari’s indepth look at mother’s milk debuted at Woodstock. It went on to screen at DOC NYC, Citizen Jane, and Australia’s Human Rights Arts & Film Fest.

I previously wrote about the film for the DOC NYC program, saying:
Bypassing the breastmilk vs. formula debate, Dana Ben-Ari’s film instead looks at the practical, societal, and biological realities faced by women who choose to breastfeed. Why are so few nursing mothers able to breastfeed exclusively? What has made a natural biological act into a taboo public activity? Where can an adoptive mother turn if she wants the benefits of breastmilk for her child? With candor and humor, mothers and other experts discuss the challenges, misconceptions and fears around mother’s milk.

Coming to DVD today, Tuesday, May 6: UNITED IN ANGER: A HISTORY OF ACT UP

Jim Hubbard’s history of the grassroots AIDS activist group made its premiere at MoMA’s Documentary Fortnight in 2012. Other fest screenings followed at Hot Docs, and at LGBT fests around the world, including Frameline, Outfest, and Mix Brasil.

I previously wrote about the film out of Hot Docs here.

Coming to VOD today, Tuesday, May 6: AN AFFAIR OF THE HEART

Sylvia Caminer’s exploration of Rick Springfield fandom made its debut at the Florida Film Festival last year. It also screened at IDFA, Hot Docs, Nashville, Sidewalk, Hot Springs, and Planete+ Doc, among others, before a limited theatrical release. FilmBuff now releases it on iTunes, Amazon, Google, Vudu, Hulu, PlayStation, and other VOD platforms.

I previously wrote about the doc here.