Category Archives: Releases

Coming to VOD tomorrow, Tuesday, March 15: THE ARMOR OF LIGHT

Abigail Disney’s exploration of faith and the Second Amendment debuted at Tribeca last year. Screenings followed at Traverse City, AFI Docs, Hamptons, Galway, Montclair, Milwaukee, St Louis, Heartland, Global Peace, Oxford, and SF Jewish, among others. The film now comes to VOD platforms, including iTunes, Amazon, Google Play, and Vudu.

I previously wrote about the doc upon its theatrical release here.

Coming to NYC’s JCC Manhattan CineMatters series tonight, Tuesday, March 8: LOOK AT US NOW, MOTHER!

Gayle Kirschenbaum’s exploration of her fraught relationship with her mother debuted at Sarasota last year. Other screenings included DocAviv, Woods Hole, Rhode Island, Woodstock, Orlando, Mumbai, and Jewish fests in Toronto, Nashville, Atlanta, Palm Beach, Miami and Baton Rouge.

Kirschenbaum continues to mine the personal terrain that was the subject of her previous film, MY NOSE, a short that focused on her mother Mildred’s obsession with her daughter’s appearance. Expanding from this premise to take a wider look at their mother/daughter relationship, Kirschenbaum’s new film is, essentially, filmmaking as therapy, for all the good – and bad – that this entails. From Kirschenbaum’s standpoint, she has suffered from years of humiliation, criticism, and downright abuse from the hypercritical Mildred, while the mother points to her daughter’s lifelong defiance and inability to let go of minor things. While the filmmaker eventually convinces herself to look past her mother’s prickliness to consider what made her that way, this doesn’t ameliorate the awkwardness of the proceedings for the viewer. Focused on such a fundamental relationship as that between a child and a parent, audiences can certainly relate to some extent, but it’s like being invited to a friend’s home for dinner only to silently witness the evening erupt into a never-ending family fight, with no escape in sight.

Coming to PBS’s American Masters and to DVD today, Friday, March 4: LORETTA LYNN: STILL A MOUNTAIN GIRL

Vikram Jayanti’s tribute to the Queen of Country Music makes its world premiere on the long-running public television series, which celebrates its 30th anniversary this season. The doc debuts in conjunction with the release of Lynn’s Full Circle, her first new studio album in more than a decade, which is shown being recorded here, in part.

Jayanti’s film is a warm appreciation of the Grammy Award-winning best-selling artist, whose life story was memorialized in the Oscar-winning COAL MINER’S DAUGHTER, based on Lynn’s 1976 autobiography, and which, of course, takes its name from her most recognizable song. That song is so popular that Jayanti just can’t resist including what feels like more than a dozen renditions here, not only by Lynn in archival and present day footage, but by family members, other country stars, and, in what’s absolutely overkill, members of a tour group that come through Lynn’s ranch during an interview. This over-indulgence isn’t limited to that song, unfortunately, as the doc also features one or two too many riffs on “You Ain’t Woman Enough (To Take My Man),” contributing to a feeling that the project is a bit padded. On the plus side, Lynn is a warm, genuine presence, allowing her to win over viewers who might not have any particular affection for her style of music; and the entertaining stories her family shares of her tumultuous 48-year relationship with husband Doolittle demonstrate just how he inspired her catalogue of vibrant songs about cheating and drinking.