Category Archives: Film

Coming to NYC’s Mayles Cinema via the Documentary in Bloom series today, Monday, March 24: BROTHERS HYPNOTIC

Reuben Atlas’ profile of the Hypnotic Brass Ensemble debuted at SXSW last year. Its fest circuit included Hot Docs, Montclair, Los Angeles, Film Society’s Sound + Vision, Urbanworld, Antenna, Indie Memphis, Sound Unseen, RIDM, Pan African, Big Sky, and Noise Pop.

I previously wrote about the doc here.

Coming to PBS’s Independent Lens this coming Monday, March 24: ALL OF ME

Alexandra Lescaze’s look at the impact of weight loss on a group of overweight female friends had its world premiere at the Los Angeles Film Festival last year. It went on to screen at Austin and the Rocky Mountain Women’s Film Festival, in addition to numerous community and health-based events around the country.

Lescaze explores a once-tight-knit group of friends who bonded over their common size online and at social gatherings for big women and the men who love them. As some women start pursuing surgical options to reduce their weight over health concerns, the group dynamic shifts, with jealousy and vanity leading to rifts. The film focuses on three women in particular: Dawn, who once celebrated her size as a fat fetish model, but whose weight loss has stalled out, leading to problems with her husband; Judy, whose dramatic weight loss is accompanied by a shift to holistic lifestyle; and Zsalynn, the youngest of the three, who has struggled with yo yo dieting even as she is active as a fat acceptance activist. These and the other subjects speak with emotional honesty, serving as powerful examples of the impact society’s sizeism has on us all.

Coming to theatres tomorrow, Friday, March 21: JODOROWSKY’S DUNE

Frank Pavich’s gleeful revisitation of the never-realized sci-fi adaptation had its world premiere in the Directors’ Fortnight at Cannes last year. It has gone on to screen at Toronto, Telluride, AFI Fest, BFI London, CPH:DOX, Fantastic Fest, Tokyo, and Sitges.

I previously wrote about the doc out of Toronto here.

Coming to NYC theatres and to VOD today, Tuesday, March 18: PRETTY OLD

Walter Matteson’s look at a senior beauty pageant debuted at Santa Barbara in 2012, where it won best documentary. It went on to screen at Nantucket, Woodstock, Newport Beach, San Diego, Ft Lauderdale, and Boston Jewish, among other events. It is now available via iTunes, Amazon Instant Video, Google Play, Direct TV, PlayStation, Xbox Video, VUDU and YouTube Movies, as well as for theatrical on-demand engagements via Gathr.

For the past thirty years, women over the age of 58 have come to Fall River MA to compete in the Ms Senior Sweetheart Pageant, singled out by many contestants as their favorite of similar types of events. Over the course of eleven days, thirty women join their peers for competition, but with a large dose of camaraderie, celebrating their age and experience rather than ruing it. Interweaved with backstage and onstage pageant goings on, Matteson profiles four of the engaging competitors in greater depth – who contend with cancer, Alzheimer’s, and other concerns – while also providing insight on the event’s history via its indelible founder, Lenny.