Category Archives: Releases

New to theatres today, Friday, June 15:
STRAIGHT INTO A STORM

Director:
William Miller

Premiere:
Nashville 2017

Select Festivals:
Doc’n Roll, Reel Music

About:
A celebration of the Providence alt-rock band Deer Tick.

Filmed in conjunction with the band’s 10th anniversary in 2014-2015, which was marked by a series of shows in NYC, Miller’s film follows standard music doc conventions, blending extensive performance footage with behind the scenes, archival, and interviews reflecting on Deer Tick’s formation, lineup changes, life on tour, and its colorful band members. Tailor-made for existing fans, the doc is decidedly insider, chock-full of anecdotes often dependent on foreknowledge of bandmates’ histories and personalities, making this a slog to get through for a casual viewer unfamiliar with the band.

New to DVD this week:
SCRUM

Director:
Poppy Stockell

Premiere:
Sheffield 2015

Select Festivals:
New Orleans, Montreal World, Frameline, Outfest, NewFest, LGBT fests in Sydney, Glasgow, Cardiff, Melbourne, and Copenhagen

About:
A portrait of a gay Aussie rugby team.

Stockell’s subjects are the Sydney Convicts, and specifically three players hoping to make the cut to compete in the annual Bingham Cup tournament, which draws participants from 15 countries. Overly artsy profiles of Aki, Pearse, and Brennan reveal familiar themes of exclusion and bullying of gay athletes in their youth and within mainstream sports teams, and the opportunity provided by gay leagues for players to find acceptance and camaraderie. Running at only about an hour, the well-intentioned doc feels underdeveloped, however, assuming audiences will have familiarity with rugby and its gameplay, as well as with the gay rugby circuit, making this most appropriate for an insider LGBT audience rather than a general one.

Coming to DVD and VOD today, Tuesday, June 12:
MY LETTER TO THE WORLD

Director:
Solon Papadopoulos

Premiere:
Bermuda 2017

About:
A consideration of the life and writing of Emily Dickinson.

Made as a companion piece to Terence Davies’ Dickinson biopic, A QUIET PASSION, Papadopoulos’ project is an informative but workmanlike project that aims to dig deeper into the historical record of the poet’s life and work. Decidedly better suited to the small screen, given its heavy usage of expert talking heads, the doc could have benefited from more generous and creative usage of clips from Davies’ well-received drama. Actress Cynthia Nixon, who portrayed the poet in the latter, here resumes the role, voicing Dickinson’s poems and letters; while helping to enliven the affair, the result nevertheless feels a bit old-fashioned and cements the project as decidedly niche and unlikely to attract those not already ardent admirers of the poet.

Coming to VOD tomorrow, Tuesday, June 12:
GAMECHANGERS: DREAMS OF BLIZZCON

Director:
John Keating

Premiere:
DreamHack Austin 2018

About:
A look at the lives of two professional StarCraft II players as they prepare for an eSports grand championship.

In South Korea, the popularity of online strategy games like World of Warcraft reached a fever pitch with the release of the games StarCraft and its sequel, spawning a subculture of gaming in Internet cafes and the emergence of eSports. Skilled players like Jang Min-Chul – known as MC – were able to earn enough money playing to become professional gamers. Keating’s film follows MC and younger player Mun Seong Won – better known as MMA – as they contend with the ups and downs of their competitive sport, as well as personal drama behind the scenes, such as impending mandatory military service that threatens to derail a once-promising career. While the film provides basic information to clue in a non-gaming viewer about StarCraft II, the extensive game play shown on screen is virtually incomprehensible at the speed at which these champions play, making for long, repetitive, confusing, and frankly boring stretches of time that detract from the more compelling personal issues that the protagonists face.