Category Archives: Releases

New to DVD and VOD this week:
FLIN FLON: A HOCKEY TOWN

Director:
Dustin Cohen

Premiere:
Cinequest 2018

Select Festivals:
Northwest Fest, Oil Valley, Austin Revolution, Hamilton

About:
A portrait of small Canadian mining town and its local junior hockey league.

Flin Flon, Manitoba – its unusual name borrowed from a character in a 1905 science fiction novel – is a typical remote Canadian town. With a population of approximately 5000, and mining as its main industry, the community does have one claim to fame: the Flin Flon Bombers. This junior hockey team counts among its alumni more than 40 NHL players, including some Hall of Famers. As more than one local explains, everyone in town is obsessed with the Bombers, and the Bombers – aged 18-20 years old, many coming from outside of the community – love their local fans. Dustin Cohen’s film offers up a slice of Canadiana, loosely profiling several members of the team, as well as some residents, resulting in a slight but affectionate profile of a small town and its young athletes.

New to DVD and VOD this week:
WILL WORK FOR VIEWS: THE LO-FI LIFE OF WEIRD PAUL

Directors:
Joseph Litzinger and Eric Michael Schrader

Premiere:
NH Docs 2018

Select Festivals:
Philadelphia Unnamed, Covellite

About:
After 30 years of making funny videos and recording songs, a pre-YouTube vlogger is still looking to catch his big break and make a living off of his work.

Litzinger and Schrader introduce viewers to Paul Petroskey, 45 years old, who has been making videos since the age of 13, initially with an early consumer video camera. Known as Weird Paul, the quirky Petroskey is convinced he will be famous through his work, which includes a range of silly songs/music videos, unusual observations, responding to viewer messages – pretty typical YouTuber fare. The difference here is that he’s been doing this since before the Internet existed, and bills himself as the “original vlogger.” Weird Paul works at a Spencer’s Gifts to make ends meet, but otherwise is obsessive about creating content for his YouTube channel, checking his stats, and reading and responding to comments – but he doesn’t make any money from it. He does have the support of his oddball girlfriend, parents, son from a previous marriage, and local suburban Pennsylvania fans. The film draws from his 30-year archive to give a sense of his humor and output, but primarily is focused on Weird Paul’s excitement over being offered a gig in Hollywood, something he’s always dreamed of, even if it’s not a paid gig. There’s something appealing in Weird Paul’s haplessness and quirkiness, making for a generally watchable portrait of an eccentric personality, but the film remains a surface affair, never generating any real drama or much surprise.

Coming to PBS’s America ReFramed screening series tomorrow, Tuesday, February 26:
LATE BLOSSOM BLUES

Directors:
Wolfgang Pfoser-Almer and Stefan Wolner

Premiere:
Clarksdale 2017

Select Festivals:
Bentonville, Oxford, Diagonale, Asbury Park, Crossing Europe, Doc’n’Roll

About:
A portrait of a bluesman who didn’t emerge on the scene until his 80s.

Leo “Bud” Welch released his debut in 2014, at the age of 81, and became a sensation, playing shows all over the US, Europe, and Africa. Pfoser-Almer and Wolner explore the story behind this late-in-life musical career with this simple, if somewhat overlong, profile of the man and his life in small town Bruce MS. They follow Welch, his manager, Vencie Varnado, and other collaborators as the musician enjoys the realization of his dream of being a professional musician while maintaining a relatively normal life in Bruce and coping with the realities of his advanced age. Of particular note is Welch’s ability to successfully straddle the worlds of gospel and blues – the music of God and the Devil, respectively, as explored here. The good-natured Welch and his unlikely story have a certain appeal, but the doc remains most suited to music fans rather than the general viewer.

Coming to theatres today, Friday, February 22:
PROSECUTING EVIL: THE EXTRAORDINARY WORLD OF BEN FERENCZ

Director:
Barry Avrich

Premiere:
Toronto 2018

Select Festivals:
United Nations Association, Santa Barbara, Boulder, Jerusalem, Jewish fests in Atlanta, Tampa Bay, Hartford, Palm Beach, San Diego, Honolulu, and Santa Cruz

About:
A profile of the last surviving member of the Nuremberg prosecutorial team.

Ben Ferencz was brought to NYC as a baby by his parents, fleeing the persecution of Jews in Europe in the early 1920s. By the time he joined the US Army to fight in WWII, he had received a law degree from Harvard. As part of his duties as the war ended, Ferencz was tasked to collect evidence of war crimes, visiting liberated concentration camps to bear witness to Nazi atrocities committed there. When the Nuremberg trials were called, the young lawyer, just 27, was appointed chief prosecutor in the trial of the Einsatzgruppen, the Nazi death squads responsible for the deaths of more than one million Jews and other supposed enemies of the German state. This set him off an a lifelong mission to prevent further crimes against humanity, including genocide, by advocating for an International Criminal Court – an entity that finally became a reality in 2002. Barry Avrich’s film is a capable if conventional biography, benefitting primarily from the now-nearly 100-year-old subject’s deeply impactful personal reflections, testimony that earns its gravitas without the need for the project’s distracting, bombastic score.