Category Archives: Recommendations

Coming to VOD today, Tuesday, August 1:
ROMEO IS BLEEDING

Director:
Jason Zeldes

Premiere:
San Francisco 2015

Select Festivals:
Seattle, Berkshire, Newport Beach, Cleveland, St Louis, Aspen, St Louis, Hot Springs Doc, Napa Valley, Honolulu, Sarasota, Florida, RiverRun, Urbanworld

About:
A young African-American man turns to Shakespeare to address the violence in his community.

I previously wrote about the doc here.

Coming to DVD today, Tuesday, August 1:
OBIT.

Director:
Vanessa Gould

Premiere:
Tribeca 2016

Select Festivals:
Hot Docs, AFI Docs, GlobeDocs, Philadelphia, Provincetown, New Zealand, Traverse City, Hot Springs Doc, Denver, Palm Springs

About:
An inside look at The New York Times obituaries department.

I previously wrote about the doc here.

Coming to PBS’s POV tonight, Monday, July 31:
MEMORIES OF A PENITENT HEART

Director:
Cecilia Aldarondo

Premiere:
Tribeca 2016

Select Festivals:
New Orleans, Florida, QDoc, Inside/Out, Guanajuato, Hot Springs Doc, Indie Memphis, Sydney Mardi Gras, BFI Flare, One World, Cleveland

About:
An investigation into the buried secrets around the life and death of the filmmaker’s uncle.

Aldarondo’s Uncle Miguel died long ago, in the 1980s, part of the lost generation of gay men claimed by AIDS. Having moved from Puerto Rico to NYC to pursue dreams of a career in theatre, he embraced a newfound sexual freedom and had a serious relationship with a man named Robert – much to the disapproval of his very religious family. When he is stricken down by disease, his mother Carmen pressures him to renounce his sexuality and beg forgiveness, clearing the way for the family amnesia that follows about Miguel’s life and death and the utter removal of Robert from his narrative. More than two decades later, Aldarondo forces the closet door open in hopes of learning more about her long gone uncle, both from her family, and, perhaps more importantly, from Robert, who has transformed his life in unexpected ways. What emerges is a compelling and affecting personal exploration of selective memory, as well as a broader reminder of the competing histories written at the height of the AIDS epidemic.

Coming to theatres today, Wednesday, July 26:
ESCAPES

Director:
Michael Almereyda

Premiere:
BAMcinemaFest 2016

Select Festivals:
Rotterdam, San Francisco (both as WIP)

About:
An unconventional biography of occasional actor and BLADE RUNNER screenwriter Hampton Fancher.

On the surface, Fancher would seem to be an unlikely subject for a documentary profile, except perhaps one wholly focused on BLADE RUNNER – and even then, likely primarily suited to that film’s admirers. That’s decidedly not what Almereyda has crafted here, which instead in many ways looks beyond Fancher himself to explore the escapism of storytelling, and, specifically, of Hollywood. His leading man is still front and center, but it’s largely through the images he was part of that his outrageous, perhaps not wholly believable, biography is revealed. Almereyda alternates sections of biography, conveyed through terse screencards, with long stretches of anecdotes – usually involving famous women he seduced –
delivered in voiceover by his subject, and illustrated via clips from the various television shows and obscure films in which he appeared. If at first seemingly too clever by half, the technique soon underscores Fancher’s presence as a not completely sympathetic or reliable narrator, but one who still seems authentically representative of the mythmaking of his industry.

Coming back to PBS’s American Experience – in recognition of the event’s 50th anniversary – tomorrow, Tuesday, July 25:
SUMMER OF LOVE

Directors:
Gail Dolgin and Vicente Franco

Premiere:
American Experience (April 2007)

About:
An in-depth look at the convergence of the counterculture in San Francisco in the summer of 1967.

This look back to the utopian vision of a new youth-driven, free-thinking society is bookended with the Golden Gate Park Human Be-In in January 1967, and the Death of the Hippie mock funeral in October of the same year. The first event, and Timothy Leary’s call for everyone to “turn on, tune, drop out,” served as a clarion call, drawing would-be hippies to San Francisco from all corners of the country – an onslaught that SF city officials resisted and that the counterculture’s limited infrastructure was ultimately unable to properly handle, leading to serious problems, from drug overdoses to the exploitation of youth. Dolgin and Franco concisely explore both why the hippie counterculture emerged in the tempestuous 1960s and why San Francisco became, for many, its hub, drawing on the memories of participants in that unforgettable summer and ample archival footage that showed the transformation of Haight-Ashbury, the response of longtime residents, and the curious onlookers who contributed to the sensationalism of the phenomenon.