Category Archives: Releases

New to VOD this week:
DO SOMETHING: THE JEFFREY MODELL STORY

Director:
Lisa Binns

World Premiere:
VOD release (June 2019)

About:
A couple reflects on the impact of their son’s rare disease on their lives.

As an infant, it became clear to his parents that Jeffrey Modell was suffering from some kind of health issue. After numerous consultations with doctors and hospital stays, he was diagnosed with primary immunodeficiency, a rare condition that made him susceptible to life-threatening illness. Though Jeffrey was a fighter and maintained optimism about his odds, he died at the age of 15. His parents, Fred and Vicki, decide to honor his memory by starting a foundation to support research into his disease, reaching out to pharmaceutical companies and senators to support legislation and research, and doing a lot of promotion, taking a small initial investment and turning it into a sustainable charity to hopefully find a cure. While there’s certainly some power in the Modells’ recounting of their son’s life and death, once the focus turns to the foundation’s story, the film becomes self-promotional, underlining that the project is a fairly standard awareness doc best used as a fundraising tool rather than for general audience exposure.

New to VOD this week:
THE BULLISH FARMER

Director:
Ken Marsolais

World Premiere:
Cinequest 2017

Select Festivals:
Berkshire, Macon, Woods Hole, United Nations Association, Sedona

About:
An investment banker gives up Wall Street to become a sustainable farmer.

After more than a decade as a successful Wall Street banker, John left behind the money and the pace of NYC to purchase 185 acres of land in upstate New York and take a different path. Now known as “John Boy,” he builds up a small-scale farm, growing crops and raising livestock, gaining a reputation for his traditional methods learned by veteran farmers. In this earnest and modest project, director Ken Marsolais profiles John Boy as he reveals how he was motivated to begin speaking out against industrial farming methods, GMOS, and other threats to the kind of small-scale, sustainable farming – and food production – in which he so passionately believes. While John Boy is a likeable enough figure, the film’s placid, straightforward approach makes it fairly unmemorable and best suited to a specialized audience already interested in the topic.

Coming to theatres across the US for one night only, tonight, Wednesday, June 12:
FREE TRIP TO EGYPT

Director:
Ingrid Serban

World Premiere:
New York City limited theatrical release (May 31, 2019)

About:
A Muslim Egyptian-Canadian seeks Americans to confront their preconceptions about the Arab world by offering them a free trip to Egypt.

In an effort to explore cross-cultural understanding during a time of severe xenophobia, Tarek Mounib, a self-described entrepreneur who grew up in Halifax, Nova Scotia, hatches a modest plan: He will bring a small group of Americans to Egypt on an all-expenses paid trip, pairing them with locals to upend stereotypes and foster one-on-one connections. Director Ingrid Serban follows him as he sets out to fulfill this goal, from searching for participants, through the trip itself, and, to a limited extent, its impact. By its nature, the film is intentionally (and somewhat annoyingly) meta in approach, with a great deal of time spent on the set up: Mounib interviewed about why he’s doing this, and followed in his frankly naive if not willfully inept initial attempts to reach potential recruits, including a visit to Trump rally in Louisville and sending an agent to NYC’s Union Square to hold up a hand-written sign. He makes for a far less compelling subject than do a couple of his eventual trip-takers, notably an older Jewish couple who have found themselves to have drifted into irrationally racist views despite a proudly liberal background. Other participants are too briefly sketched, but include a cop, a female veteran, a male Marine, and a couple of his born again Christian friends who tag along expressly to spread their love of Christ. Once in Egypt, the Americans have the expected eye-opening experience of seeing real-live Muslims, with only some brief moments of friction, which seems underplayed. Some months later, Mounib visits with the group to discuss the trip’s lasting effects, but shies away from discussing political views to instead focus on an unexpected tragedy. As a whole, Mounib’s project – and Serban’s film – is well-intentioned but simplistic, with the doc struggling with pacing and focus, making it less impactful than it appears to believe it is.

Coming to DVD today, Tuesday, June 11:
CIELO

Director:
Alison McAlpine

Premiere:
New York Film Festival 2017

Select Festivals:
Hot Docs, RIDM, Full Frame, DOXA, Karlovy Vary, SANFIC

About:
A meditation on the night sky above Chile.

I previously wrote about the doc here.

Coming to HBO tomorrow night, Tuesday, June 11:
ICE ON FIRE

Director:
Leila Conners

World Premiere:
Cannes 2019

About:
A look at how the world can reverse climate change.

Despite the efforts of climate change denialists, the scientific community overwhelmingly has demonstrated the reality of the escalating crisis mankind has caused due to carbon emissions and the exploitation and depletion of fossil fuels. There have been countless documentaries exploring the impending doom the planet faces unless we change our ways and force political leaders to take steps to ameliorate the situation through legislation – a particularly challenging task under the present fact-free and science-phobic administration. Into the breach comes another climate change doc, which, like 2016’s BEFORE THE FLOOD, features Leonardo DiCaprio. Unlike the previous film, DiCaprio appears here only as narrator, and, in what will likely be a welcome approach for the more casual viewer, this current project attempts to focus on solutions more than ion scaring audiences with doom-and-gloom prognostications. That’s not to say that it completely avoids the latter, of course, but to director Leila Conners’ credit, there’s something of a lighter and more hopeful approach – perhaps too optimistic, but it’s a change of pace. She helms a well produced project here, with some nice graphics and cinematography, but her film suffers from a certain episodic blandness, consisting primarily of a survey of what feels like dozens of scientists, as well as the odd firefighter or fisherman, who each too-briefly comment on some element of their work connected with climate change before the scene change and DiCaprio introduces the next in line. While likely to appeal primarily to those viewers who are already concerned about climate change, the doc’s solutions-oriented approach might draw in some who have felt a certain amount of looming-disaster fatigue, but probably won’t leave a dramatic impression nor reach skeptics.