Category Archives: Releases

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?

Coming to theatres and to VOD today, Friday, April 8: HAVANA MOTOR CLUB

Bent-Jorgen Perlmutt’s look at an underground car race in Cuba debuted at Tribeca last year. Screenings followed at New Orleans, Mill Valley, Milwaukee, Heartland, and Havana, among other events. In addition to a limited theatrical release, the doc also comes to iTunes.

Although the Cuban government long ago outlawed car racing as a dangerous and elitist activity, a scrappy group of enthusiasts have slyly defied official bans, holding underground drag races with their refitted vintage 1950s vehicles, a very visible, anachronistic reminder of the long-held sanctions that were still in place when Perlmutt began this project. The director identifies several subjects – perhaps one or two too many to allow for deeper individuation – who are hopeful about the possibility of participating in the first state-sanctioned race since 1959. When a Papal visit forces the race to be suspended for safety reasons, these men once again find their dreams stuck in limbo. Beyond its specific appeal to those already enamored with car culture, Perlmutt’s film offers broader audiences a unique look at Cuba and its relationship with the outside world, particularly its complicated connection to the US, through the dreams of its hopeful racers as they try to legitimize a beloved, long-illicit, activity.

Coming to theatres today, Friday, April 8: BE HERE NOW: THE ANDY WHITFIELD STORY

Lilibet Foster’s chronicle of the SPARTACUS star’s cancer fight made its bow at the Los Angeles Film Festival last year, where it claimed the documentary audience award. Other screenings have included Hot Springs Doc, Santa Barbara, and Documentary Edge, among other events.

When Andy Whitfield was cast as the lead in the Starz television series SPARTACUS: BLOOD AND SAND, the handsome Welsh engineer turned actor had finally achieved a career dream. Although the critically acclaimed show was renewed, the production was delayed when Whitfield was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma. With his supportive wife, Vashti, and their two young children at his side, the amiable actor was determined to recover, and invited Foster, an Academy Award-nominated documentarian, to chronicle the process, hoping it could help other families facing the same diagnosis. While her film can’t escape all of the conventions of disease-focused documentaries, Foster provides an intimate, sympathetic, and surprisingly personable view of the Wakefields as they try to hold on to their positivity while seeking treatments both traditional and alternative. If the somewhat overlong film perhaps indulges in Whitfield’s celebrity a bit too much – in particular the embrace by his fandom of the titular family motto, which crops up here as a popular tattoo adopted in support or, later, in memory of the actor – it nevertheless succeeds in conveying a clear sense of a loving couple, and family, not willing to succumb to fear or anger when faced with mortality.