Category Archives: Film

New to VOD this week: ARTIFACT

Bartholomew Cubbins (AKA Jared Leto)’s indictment of the modern recording industry made its debut at Toronto last year, where it won the audience award. It went on to screen at SXSW, DOC NYC, and Melbourne, among other fests. The doc is now available worldwide on iTunes.

Filmed over the course of two years, Leto’s engaging film chronicles his band, Thirty Seconds to Mars, as they record This Is War, the follow-up to their best-selling second album while fighting a staggering $30 million lawsuit waged against them by their record album, BMI. While fans of the band, and music doc lovers generally, will appreciate the behind-the-scenes of the three-man band as they craft songs under the guidance of legendary music producer Flood, the film is far more interesting in its laying out of the arguments against the antiquated business practices of the record industry. As Leto and his partners face the possibility of a career-ending court fight, former BMI executives, attorneys, and other musicians detail the outrageous economics of the music business, where even a multi-million bestseller can leave a band in serious financial debt to their label. The latter comes off as an ever more greedy and clueless corporate tool even as it faces extinction, more than willing to sacrifice its artists in pursuit of a vanishing profit. While Thirty Seconds to Mars manage to figure out a somewhat workable solution, Leto’s film serves as a cautionary tale about the pitfalls of the modern music industry and a call for an alternate model.

Coming to NYC’s Maysles Cinema as part of a Marc Levin Masterclass series this Saturday, December 7: GANG WAR: BANGIN’ IN LITTLE ROCK and BACK IN THE HOOD: GANG WAR II

Marc Levin’s 1994 exploration of unexpected gang violence in Arkansas and its 2004 follow-up both screened on HBO.

Levin’s first look at Little Rock shocked viewers, demonstrating how gangs like the Bloods, Crips, and Folk had spread from their original bases of Los Angeles, New York, and Chicago to the center of the country, attracting a multi-racial membership of disaffected youth. As pointed out more than once in the first doc, the year before it aired Little Rock saw its per capita murder rate surpass those larger cities. Levin follows the city’s coroner, Steve Nawojczyk, as he tries to curb the violence by confronting gangbangers with photos of the many youths he’s had to tend to in his job, and, simply, by listening to them – even as he risks his own life, as when he’s caught by happenstance here in the middle of a drive-by shooting. A ceasefire negotiation between rival gangs offers a hopeful end to the original doc, but, a decade later, with violence once again on the rise, Levin returns. The sequel focuses on Leifel Jackson, the former head of the Crips featured in the previous film, as he adjusts to life back in Little Rock after serving time. Determined to stay out of prison to care for his family, he volunteers for school programs with former rivals to speak frankly about gang life and to persuade kids to stay out of it. Others that Levin checks back in on haven’t fared as well, or see no legitimate recourse to the drug trade in a troubled economy, and have remained in the life. While Jackson serves as a compelling guide, it’s disappointing that the follow-up failed to profile members of the other gangs featured in the first film, whose non-stereotypical racial and gender make-up proved especially intriguing.

Coming to NYC’s Lincoln Plaza Cinema this Friday, December 6: TIM’S VERMEER

Teller’s look at one man’s quest to uncover the Dutch master’s secrets made its debut at Telluride. It went on to screen at Toronto and the New York Film Festival. The doc will open in LA next week, and then goes nationwide at the end of January. It was just announced as one of the fifteen films shortlisted for the Best Documentary Feature Oscar.

I included the doc in my Toronto coverage here.