Category Archives: Recommendations

Coming to NYC’s Rooftop Films tomorrow, Friday, June 8:
WRESTLE

Director:
Suzannah Herbert

Co-Director:
Lauren Belfer

Premiere:
San Francisco 2018

About:
An intimate look at a Huntsville AL high school wrestling team.

JO Johnson High School is a struggling institution in a state which already typically has low test scores and graduation rates. Against the odds, social studies teacher Chris Scribner forms a wrestling team that gives its students hope. Herbert and Belfer’s film focuses on four of his team members – Jamario, Teague, Jailen, and Jaquan – whose trials on the mat are nothing compared to what they face in their personal lives, impacted by class and race. As they contend with absent parents and dysfunctional families, substance abuse, teen pregnancy, and racial profiling – on top of the universal struggle of adolescents to assert their independence – these young athletes seek focus and control through Scribner’s team, but they don’t always beat the odds. Though at times feeling like it has one subject too many, with varying levels of engagement and responsiveness from its protagonists, the film ultimately remains compelling in its empathetic and intimate coming of age portrait of four young adults striving to better themselves and their situation.

New to DVD and VOD this week:
THE FABULOUS ALLAN CARR

Director:
Jeffrey Schwarz

Premiere:
Seattle 2018

Select Festivals:
Frameline, Outfest, Inside Out, QDoc, NewFest, Hot Springs Doc, Key West, LGBT fests in Boston, Melbourne, Atlanta, Palm Springs, Fresno, Durham, Dublin, Houston, Denver, Cleveland, and Halifax

About:
The story of the flamboyant entertainment impresario behind GREASE and CAN’T STOP THE MUSIC.

Though never a household name, for several decades, Allan Carr was the ultimate, if unlikely, Hollywood insider and power player. He demonstrated a savvy sense of marketing, responsible for Oscar campaigns for well-respected films like THE DEER HUNTER, while also serving as talent manager and producer, reaping the sizeable benefits of properties like GREASE, and even Broadway hits like LA CAGE AUX FOLLES until bad decisions, most notably the infamously poorly received 1989 Academy Awards ceremony he produced, led to a carer freefall. With both humor and respect, Schwarz and an assemblage of famed collaborators and admirers entertaingly recount how the eccentric, effeminate Carr got into the business, initially through theatre and later television, and how he parlayed success in these endeavors to conquer Hollywood, benefitting from a penchant for self-promotion and throwing outlandish parties.

New to VOD this week:
WHITE BOY

Director:
Shawn Rech

Premiere:
Freep 2017

Select Festivals:
DOC NYC

About:
A portrait of an infamous and influential tennis coach who has trained champions, at a personal price.

The film screened as part of DOC NYC, for which our program notes read:
Richard Wershe Jr, known as “White Boy Rick,” was a legend of Detroit’s drug world in the 1980s. As a white teenager alleged to be running an inner-city drug operation, he was irresistible to the media. Charged with a nonviolent juvenile offense in 1987, Wershe remains in prison at nearly 50 years old. Director Shawn Rech interviews gangsters, hit men, journalists, and federal agents who raise questions as to whether Wershe’s punishment fits his crimes in this compelling look at one man caught up in drug world legends and the criminal justice system.