Category Archives: Recommendations

Coming to DVD tomorrow, Tuesday, April 14:
EAST LAKE MEADOWS: A PUBLIC HOUSING STORY

Director:
Sarah Burns and David McMahon

World Premiere:
PBS broadcast (March 2020)

About:
The history of an Atlanta public housing community.

I previously wrote about the doc here.

New to DVD this week:
THE COLD BLUE

Director:
Erik Nelson

Premiere:
AFI Docs 2018

Select Festivals:
New York, Traverse City

About:
A meditation on war composed of archival film of B-17 bombers shot by William Wyler.

I previously wrote about the doc here.

New to DVD/VOD this week:
CITIZEN K

Director:
Alex Gibney

World Premiere:
Venice 2019

Select Festivals:
Toronto, London, Warsaw, AFI Fest, Hamptons, Rio

About:
An exploration of post-Soviet Russia through oligarch-turned-dissident Mikhail Khodorkovsky.

I previously wrote about the doc here.

Coming to PBS today, Tuesday, April 7 and next Tuesday, April 14:
THE GENE: AN INTIMATE HISTORY

Directors:
Chris Durrance and Jack Youngelson

World Premiere:
PBS broadcast (April 2020)

About:
A far-ranging history of the discovery and research into the human genome.

Based on the eponymous book by Pulitzer Prize-winning oncologist Dr Siddhartha Mukherjee, and executive produced by Ken Burns, this two-part, four-hour documentary provides viewers with a crash course in genetic science, tracing its development from the pioneering 19th century studies of Gregor Mendel to the mapping of the human genome and more recent, thorny questions around genetic manipulation through technologies like CRISPR. Threaded alongside this history – which, while informative, is presented in a conventional, educational PBS style of expository narration, talking heads, and graphics – are various profiles of individuals facing challenges due to genetic diseases, bringing a human angle while also demonstrating the wide implications of the science being discussed. The project’s expanded form allows room to address the complex ethical issues involved, and to contextualize them with considerations of how genetic science has been perverted in the past through eugenics, and how this could resurface through modern genetic tinkering. This is critical, as shown in the disturbing development which serves as the film’s bookend, the November 2018 announcement that a Chinese researcher defied an agreed upon moratorium on clinical gene-editing to alter twin baby girls in vitro to be unable to contract HIV.

Coming to PBS today, Friday, April 3:
THE WINDERMERE CHILDREN: IN THEIR OWN WORDS

Directors:
Guy Arthur and Francis Welch

World Premiere:
British TV broadcast (January 2020)

About:
Child survivors of the Holocaust reflect on a rehabilitation program in which they took part in the UK.

In the immediate aftermath of WWII and the liberation of the Nazi concentration camps, British philanthropist Leonard Montefiore developed an innovative but untested program to rehabilitate and resocialize youth traumatized by their experiences of the Holocaust. Working through the Central British Fund charity, which assisted Jewish refugees, he selected 300 young survivors of Theresienstadt, some as young as three years old, and had them flown to the British countryside in August 1945. Taking up residence in an abandoned aircraft factory near Lake Windermere, the youth spent the next four months being nurtured by counsellors and volunteers using pioneering child psychology and art therapy techniques, in addition to physical education and the freedom to explore their bucolic environs. Guy Arthur and Francis Welch’s doc is a companion to a fiction feature, also debuting on PBS, about their experiences, recounted here through interviews with survivors and select clips from the dramatization. While hewing close to the conventions of Holocaust documentary, and affecting due to the emotional testimony of its subjects, there’s added interest from the unusual story of the Windermere project and the focus on giving the young survivors a way to process their grief and emerge with a sense of hope despite the horrors through which they lived.

Coming to DVD/VOD tomorrow, Friday, April 3:
IT STARTED AS A JOKE

Directors:
Julie Smith Clem and Ken Druckerman

World Premiere:
SXSW 2019

Select Festivals:
Nantucket, BAMcinemaFest, IFF Boston

About:
A love letter to the world of stand-up comedy through the decade-long story of an unlikely event.

I previously wrote about the doc for Nantucket’s program, saying:
In 2008, comedian Eugene Mirman and director Julie Smith Clem jokingly launched the Eugene Mirman Comedy Festival, an alternative to stuffy mainstream comedy events. Over the next decade, the festival became a nurturing environment for the likes of Mike Birbiglia, Michael Ian Black, Jim Gaffigan, Kristen Schaal, Kumail Nanjiani, Janeane Garofalo, and Bobcat Goldthwait. This funny and surprisingly moving film celebrates the final festival and its founder, whose personal experiences demonstrate the healing power of comedy.

New to DVD this week:
MYSTIFY: MICHAEL HUTCHENCE

Director:
Richard Lowenstein

World Premiere:
Tribeca 2019

Select Festivals:
Sydney, Karlovy Vary, London, Warsaw

About:
On the life and tragic end of INXS frontman Michael Hutchence.

Presented entirely through archival video, accompanied by both archival audio recordings and new audio commentary, director Richard Lowenstein’s biography intimately reveals Hutchence’s rise from obscurity in Australia to worldwide success with INXS to his eventual death after a career downturn in a suicide that was salaciously rumored to be an auto-asphyxiation mishap. Much of this is conveyed through the various loves of his life, women he inevitably betrayed and often basically ghosted – ending things in a very passive way while simultaneously taking up with the next lover. Family members, as well as Hutchence’s own archival recordings, provide personal details, revealing how sensitive, shy Michael caught the performance bug early and fell into the role of frontman for INXS, exuding natural charisma and sexuality – taking on a role of sorts to offset his natural shyness and intellectualism, but eventually feeling trapped by the perception of being a sex symbol and not treated as a legitimate artist, even after becoming a successful international artist. Lowenstein focuses on Hutchence’s complicated, high-profile relationships with singer Kylie Minogue, model Helena Christensen, and Paula Yates, UK TV presenter and the wife of Bob Geldhof, as well as a secret American lover, who provide insight about the man and his demons. Notably, Christensen details an untreated head injury that led to mood swings and anger, which may have played a role in his 1997 suicide at the age of 37. Well assembled, the film is remarkably candid and draws the viewer in, capturing Hutchence’s charisma and sex appeal while revealing his deeper side with a very welcome personal focus.

Coming to DVD/VOD today, Tuesday, March 31:
STREETLIGHT HARMONIES

Director:
Brent Wilson

World Premiere:
DOC NYC 2017

Select Festivals:
Washington DC African Diaspora, Sound Unseen

About:
An exploration of the history of doo wop music.

The film screened as part of DOC NYC, for which our program notes read:
Doo wop, featuring stellar vocal harmonies sung a cappella, was born on street corners in the 1950s. Soon, The Coasters, The Drifters, and Frankie Valli were singing their hearts out to America on Alan Freed’s influential radio show. In Brent Wilson’s doc, a who’s who of musicians trace the evolution of American pop music from doo wop and Phil Spector’s legendary “wall of sound” up through Motown, surf music, and the British Invasion. It’s a toe-tapping stroll down memory lane for music lovers of all ages.