Category Archives: Releases

New to DVD this week: ELSTREE 1976

Jon Spira’s look at the making of STAR WARS from the margins made its bow at BFI London last year. It has also screened at Sitges and at a handful of smaller events before a limited theatrical and VOD release last month.

Named after the studio where and year when George Lucas’ unexpected blockbuster was made, Spira’s film assembles a series of interviews with nearly a dozen individuals who were there. But, with one notable exception, these don’t include the likes of stars like Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, or Carrie Fischer. Instead, Spira’s protagonists settled for bit parts – some named, others part of a sea of extras, including bar patrons, X-Wing pilots, or Stormtroopers – giving them a very brief brush with fame that nevertheless has left a lasting impact. The odd man out here is David Prowse, who enacted the role of Darth Vader, but was essentially made to play second fiddle to the character’s ominous voice, as performed by James Earl Jones. Subjects offer a too-brief reminiscence of their experiences auditioning or on set before moving on to reflect on their largely average lives which followed, and on their later intersections with the enduring fandom of the STAR WARS franchise. While the balance here is decidedly off – more behind-the-scenes details about their experiences with the film would be welcome rather than the overlong consideration of their uneventful careers – the film does offer a curious window into the notion of celebrity and its limits. On a technical level, Spira depends too much on largely static talking heads, but intermittently livens up the proceedings with evocative action figure close-ups and quirky tableaux reimagining the participants’ offtime at Elstree.

Coming to PBS’s America ReFramed tonight, Tuesday, June 28: BURIED ABOVE GROUND

Ben Selkow’s intimate look at PTSD debuted at Woodstock last year. Other screenings have included SF Indie, Cleveland, Fargo, Vail, and several mental health community screenings.

Seeking to expand awareness about the impact of trauma in a variety of forms, Selkow’s film profiles three individuals suffering from PTSD: combat veteran Luis, domestic abuse survivor and addict Erundina, and Hurricane Katrina survivor Ashley. Of these, Luis’ is the most compelling, if familiar, story, and includes the added benefit of focusing on his experiences with a golden retriever service dog. The other two strands are less successful, unfortunately. While Erundina’s story offers the most twists and turns, it could have benefited from expansion, and could easily have taken over all the space allotted to Ashley, whose inclusion feels the least developed or fitting for the film. Still, these additional perspectives do attempt the admiral goal of expanding the audience’s consideration of the range of PTSD sufferers.

Coming to DVD and VOD today, Tuesday, June 28: FRANCOFONIA

Alexander Sokurov’s Louvre-focused look at art and history made its bow at Venice last year, picking up two awards. Screenings followed at Toronto, London, San Sebastian, Thessaloniki, Reykjavik, Haifa, and Vancouver, among other festivals.

I previously wrote about the film here.

Coming to theatres today, Friday, June 24: YARN

Director Una Lorenzen and co-directors Heather Millard and Thordur Jonsson’s profile of artists working in an unusual medium had its world premiere at Göteborg this year. Screenings have followed at SXSW, Newport Beach, and Iceland’s Skjaldborg Doc fest.

Neither attempting a comprehensive overview nor an in-depth study of any particular artist, Lorenzen, Millard, and Jonsson instead offer a survey of a handful of creatives who utilize yarn – or at least the techniques of crochet and knitting with different materials – in their craft. Spanning several countries, and ranging from street art to gallery shows to experimental circus acts, the film, as with most surveys, stretches itself a bit thin without ever deeply engaging with some of the intriguing issues it broaches. Some artists, like Icelandic-born, eventually Cuban-based Tinna Thorudottir Thorvaldsdottir briefly speaks about the lack of respect shown to so-called “women’s work” – practical craftwork like knitting which often has served as an economic necessity for many households – while Japanese-born Canadian textile artist Toshiko Horiuchi MacAdam notes how her work evolved out of gallery settings into public playgrounds – another domain not traditionally afforded high-art status. Had the film focused more on these artists and considered these concepts in greater detail, rather than expanding to less interesting strands like the work of Cirkus Cirkör, the resulting tapestry might have been more solidly constructed, not just visually inventive.

Coming to VOD tomorrow, Friday, June 24: MAN VS SNAKE: THE LONG AND TWISTED TALE OF NIBBLER

Andrew Seklir and Tim Kinzy’s story of persistence debuted at Fantastic Fest last year. Other screenings have included Florida, Calgary Underground, Portland, Glasgow, Tallgrass, and Twin Cities. FilmBuff now releases the doc on various VOD platforms.

In the early ’80s, after more than two days of continual game play, teenager Tim McVey became a minor celebrity in the then-nascent world of gaming when he became the first player to ever score over a billion points in the arcade game Nibbler, which sees players navigating an ever-growing snake around a maze. Unsurprisingly, McVey soon faded into obscurity, eventually marrying and becoming an average working stiff in Iowa. When Seklir and Kinzy’s story opens, it’s been 25 years since his record – still standing, though disputed by an unverified higher score from a teenager in Italy less than a year after it was set – McVey is challenged to reach a billion on Nibbler again by Dwayne Richard, the Canadian “bad boy” of retro gaming. This sets off a series of yearly attempts by McVey to prove to himself that he can reclaim his past glory. The filmmakers assemble a number of subjects, some familiar from other gaming docs – notably the undisputed champion of the subgenre, KING OF KONG – and generally borrow much from that earlier film’s playbook, making for a serviceable, if generally derivative, entry in the field. Nibbler itself, and watching the gamers make their attempts, don’t make for the most compelling visuals, so some supplemental animation helps to liven things up a bit.