Category Archives: Releases

Coming to theatres and VOD this Friday, January 22: PRESCRIPTION THUGS

Chris Bell, Josh Alexander and GB Young’s exploration of prescription drug abuse made its bow at Tribeca last year. It also screened at Traverse City, and now, in addition to a limited theatrical release, the doc also comes to VOD via iTunes.

A follow up to his feature debut, BIGGER STRONGER FASTER*, an exposé on steroid use that focused on his brothers, Bell’s new project takes on a significantly larger target. While the film begins and ends on a more personal note, detailing first the prescription drug abuse that ultimately led to the death of one of his brothers and later offering revelations that hit even closer to home, the earnest director moves beyond his family to address the national epidemic. Adopting a Michael Moore/Morgan Spurlock approach which finds him often on camera and otherwise endlessly narrating, Bell covers familiar territory – and ultimately too much of it, too broadly – offering faux-naïveté in the face of Big Pharma’s greed and when confronted with unsurprising but still disturbing statistics about overprescriptions and their health consequences. Still, there is emotional heft in more genuine scenes with his parents and with his brother’s friends, and in the personal turn the film takes in its closing stretch. Ultimately, as one of his most engaging interview subjects – a former pharmaceutical rep-turned-whistleblower – suggests, the value of Bell’s project is in spreading the word, even if it’s ultimately a familiar tale.

Coming to VOD today, Tuesday, January 19: THERE WILL BE NO STAY

Patty Dillon’s consideration of the death penalty’s impact on the executioners premiered at Big Sky last year. Other fest screenings have included Cinequest, Omaha, and Hot Springs. FilmBuff now releases the film across VOD platforms.

Dillon’s film focuses on two primary subjects, Terry Bracey and Craig Baxley, former South Carolina correctional officers who were both traumatized by their time as executioners, with deleterious consequences on both their personal and professional lives. Having felt improperly trained to handle the impact of taking other human lives over and over again, Terry and Bax sued the state for damages, but lost. Supplementing their story are profiles of three others with experience with the correctional system’s death penalty process: former warden Dr Allen Ault, who ultimately had to walk away from his position because he couldn’t reconcile the death penalty with his beliefs; Reverend Caroll Pickett, the Huntsville TX death house chaplain-turned-anti-death penalty activist who was previously the subject of Steve James and Peter Gilbert’s affecting AT THE DEATH HOUSE DOOR; and, least successfully, Bill Pelke, the grandson of a murder victim who eventually tried to reach out to one of his grandmother’s murderers, changing his own stance on capital punishment in the process. Where Dillon succeeds is in exposing the wider impact that state-sanctioned executions have, beyond simply on the perpetrator. Where she stumbles is in her overblown, largely unnecessary narration, and in the lack of focus brought on by expanding beyond Terry and Bax’s stories.

Coming to Pivot TV as part of its Stand Up For Justice programming series tonight, Monday, January 18: SALAM NEIGHBOR

Zach Ingrasci and Chris Temple’s attempt to call attention to the Syrian refugee crisis made its world premiere at AFI Docs last Summer. It also screened at Poland’s Watch Docs, CPH:DOX, and Aruba, among other events.

Responding to the plight of Syrian refugees in Jordan, the young filmmakers set out to share the situation with Western audiences. Unfortunately, the approach they decide to take is to make a film about themselves trying to share the plight of the refugees, rather than actually allowing Syrians to share their plight. Gaining permission from the UN, they register as refugees at the Za’atari displacement camp in order to live among actual displaced Syrians for a month and replicate their experiences. After one night, however, they’re told it’s too dangerous for two Americans to live there, and they must instead stay in a nearby town. Continuing with their project in a less immersive form, they fleetingly profile a handful of residents, but still keep themselves at its center, and in the process convey their experiences and feelings of being at Za’atari more than those of the Syrians who were forced there. While no doubt well-meaning, Ingrasci and Temple’s filmmaking approach unfortunately smacks of unconscious, unexamined privilege, and loses sight of its ostensible goals.

Coming to the JCC Manhattan as part of its CineMatters series tonight, Monday, January 18: ROSENWALD

Aviva Kempner’s tribute to the unheralded philanthropist and education advocate debuted at last year’s Washington DC Jewish Film Festival. Its festival circuit has also included Nashville, Sedona, Virginia, and several Jewish fests in Toronto, San Francisco, Cleveland, and Florida, among others.

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