Category Archives: Recommendations

Coming to DVD tomorrow, Tuesday, April 19: VESSEL

Diana Whitten’s profile of reproductive rights activists debuted at SXSW in 2014, where it won two awards. Screenings followed at Nantucket, DOC NYC, Hot Docs, Sheffield, Jerusalem, Sarasota, and IFF Boston, among other fests.

I previously wrote about the doc here.

Coming to PBS’s Independent Lens tonight, Monday, April 18: DEMOCRATS

Camilla Nielsson’s exceptional portrait of strange bedfellows in Zimbabwean politics had its world premiere at CPH:DOX in 2014. Screenings followed at Göteborg, Belgrade Docs, Tempo Doc, Tribeca, San Francisco, Doc Aviv, Docs Against Gravity, Sheffield, Melbourne, New Zealand, Zurich, and Hamptons, among other events.

I previously wrote about the doc upon its theatrical release here.

Coming to theatres today, Friday, April 15: OUR LAST TANGO

German Kral’s chronicle of the fiery relationship between Argentine dance pioneers made its bow at Toronto last Fall. The film has gone on to screen at Miami, Cleveland, Stockholm, San Diego Latino, Sarasota, the Film Society’s Dance on Film, and Minneapolis/St Paul, among other events.

Credited with popularizing the tango beyond its origins in Argentina’s nightlife and taking it to the international stage, María Nieves Rego and Juan Carlos Copes reflect on long lives which match the tempestuous nature of their dance. Meeting as teenagers, as recreated here by young dancers who are coached by the now octogenarians they are portraying, Nieves Rego and Copes became partners in life and in dance for half a century. Even after they divorced in 1976, following an extramarital affair by Copes, the pair remained tango partners for two more decades before an acrimonious final split that has left them unwilling to communicate for twenty years. Kral expertly plays off this tension, revealing their complicated relationship through separate contemporary interviews, fantastic archival footage, and stylized re-enactments that accentuate the theatricality of the tango.

Available on VOD: THE CULT OF JT LEROY

Marjorie Sturm’s look at an infamous literary sensation had its world premiere at DOC NYC in 2014. It went on to screen at Hot Docs, SF Indiefest, Florida, Outfest, Boston LGBT, Portland’s QDoc, Durban, Melbourne, Antenna, RIDM, Rio, and Queerlisboa, among others. The doc is available on VOD via iTunes as well as on Fandor, SundanceNow Doc Club, and the film’s website.

I previously wrote about the film for DOC NYC’s program, saying:
JT LeRoy burst onto the literary scene in the late 1990s, attracting a devoted following through stark tales of poverty, abuse and underage prostitution in books like SARAH and THE HEART IS DECEITFUL ABOVE ALL THINGS. His was a rags-to-riches story, with his own tortured life inspiring his writing – or so he claimed. Drawn into LeRoy’s inner circle before the truth came to light, director Marjorie Sturm was misled like many others. Through intimate interviews with many close to the tarnished figure, she attempts to untangle what really happened, and in the process explores how this deception called into question not only the value of LeRoy’s writing absent authenticity, but our culture’s complicity within the author’s seductive cult of personality.

Coming to theatres tomorrow, Friday, April 15: ABOVE AND BELOW

Nicolas Steiner’s look at survival outside mainstream society had its world premiere at Rotterdam last year. Screenings also include DOC NYC, Hot Docs, BAFICI, Docs Against Gravity, Edinburgh, Karlovy Vary, Vancouver, CPH:DOX, DocPoint, Big Sky, and Cucalorus.

I previously wrote about the film for DOC NYC’s program, saying:
Nicolas Steiner’s sublime exploration of lives lived on the fringe is set in a seemingly apocalyptic world that happens to be our own. Living above ground, April dons a spacesuit to simulate life on Mars as part of a remote science program in Utah, while Dave has left modern society for an abandoned military bunker in the California desert. Meanwhile, finding shelter below, in Las Vegas storm drains, are Lalo, Rick and Cindy, who contend with frequent, dangerous flooding to survive on their own terms.

New to VOD this week: 20 YEARS OF MADNESS

Jeremy Royce’s look at the reunion of a 1990s public access television troupe had its world premiere at Slamdance last year. Its fest circuit also included Traverse City, Cleveland, Brooklyn, Boston Underground, Portland, Cinedelphia, and San Francisco Doc, among others. Gravitas now releases the doc on VOD.

Two decades ago, a group of smalltown Michigan misfits celebrated their weirdness in the form of 30 MINUTES OF MADNESS, a fourteen-episode public television sketch series that was something of a precursor to JACKASS and Tom Green’s style of chaotic revelry. After interpersonal conflicts brought an end to not only the show, but to the friendships that made the creative collaboration possible, MADNESS’ ambitious co-creator, Jerry White Jr left for Hollywood, but struggled to make it in the business, only graduating from a film program at USC as the doc opens on the eve of his twenty year high school reunion. It’s there that he reconnects with the show’s other co-creator and erstwhile best friend, Joe Hornacek, and the two off-handedly muse about getting the old gang together to tape a final episode – since it seems no one else has left their hometown. While some of their cast is a bit worse for wear, struggling with addiction and psychological problems, they nevertheless seem game to let loose for a bit, shaking up their ordinary, middle-aged lives with a return to the follies of their youth. At the same time, neither they nor Jerry are able to avoid the selfsame pitfalls that tarnished the program in the past, threatening the possibility that the final episode might not be completed. Royce finds unexpected poignancy not only in the various players’ stories, but in the impact and import they ascribe to their long ago participation in what, from the outside, seems like a silly diversion, but which now stands as a nostalgic symbol of unrealized youthful dreams and creativity.

Coming to theatres tomorrow, Wednesday, April 13: CLASS DIVIDE

Marc Levin’s exploration of a changing neighborhood made its debut at the Hamptons last year. It went on to screen at DOC NYC, where it won the Metropolis competition. The film has also screened at Havana’s International Festival of New Latin American Cinema, and will be broadcast on HBO in the Fall.

I previously wrote about the film for DOC NYC’s program, saying:
A look at NYC’s gentrification and growing inequality in a microcosm, Levin’s film explores two distinct worlds that share the same Chelsea intersection – 10th Avenue and 26th Street. On one side of the avenue, the Chelsea-Elliot Houses have provided low-income public housing to residents for decades. Their neighbor across the avenue since 2012 is Avenues: The World School, a costly private school. What happens when kids from both of these worlds attempt to cross the divide?