what (not) to doc

Coming to theatres today, Friday, February 8:
ONE MILLION AMERICAN DREAMS

Director:
Brendan Byrne

Premiere:
Galway 2018

Select Festivals:
Cork

About:
A revealing look at a NYC island that’s the final resting place for the poor and forgotten.

Restricted from public access, the 101 acres of Hart Island serve as a potter’s field, a cemetery for the unclaimed dead, buried each week by Rikers Island inmates. While not a secret, the location is little known to the ordinary residents of NYC – unless unfortunate circumstances arise with family members, as revealed in the heartbreaking stories of four of the forgotten souls who were consigned to Hart Island as their final resting place. Not only representative of the more than a million bodies lain to rest there, these profiles also expose problematic practices by the city and the medical examiner’s office – failure to notify surviving family members, or, in an extreme case, the loss of an infant’s body. Though somewhat diffuse, and hampered by a plodding score, Brendan Byrne’s project is otherwise well-produced and a respectful meditation on the ill treatment of those on the margins, in death as in life.

New to DVD this week:
FREE LUNCH SOCIETY

Director:
Christian Tod

Premiere:
CPH:DOX 2017

Select Festivals:
Docaviv, Docs Against Gravity, Zurich, Docville, United Nations Association, ZagrebDox, Rio

About:
An essay exploring the concept of guaranteed universal basic income.

What if people didn’t have to worry about earning enough money for their basic survival? A universal basic income would remove this fundamental obstacle, one that keeps poor people struggling to merely subsist, and, the Utopian argument goes, would free up individuals to actually be more productive and devote themselves to things that mattered more to them, free of the anxiety of making basic ends meet. While viewed by many as the stuff of impossible fantasy, the concept of universal basic income has been implemented in test cases, though results seem inconclusive. Tod, an economist, explores this fascinating idea and its radical potential, though he stumbles in his storytelling, incorporating an intrusive narration, dour score, and erratic montage that prove more distracting than not.

New to DVD/VOD this week:
1 BILLION ORGASMS

Directors:
Brent Kinetz and Terence Mickey

Premiere:
Golden Door 2018

About:
A man is on a mission to help women have intense orgasms.

Inspired by a less than satisfying sexual history, Aaron Headley, an engineer, has invented a device that he is certain will revolutionize women’s sexual pleasure: the crassly named “Squirt Watch” somehow helps the wearer assist his/her female companion in achieving female ejaculation. Kinetz and Mickey profile Headley for some time, though omit key information that would make the invention more understandable, then follow him as he attends the AVN Adult Entertainment Expo to promote the watch. It’s in this second half of the film that Headley emerges as a fairly unsettling and borderline creepy subject, particularly in his interactions with his booth assistant, which arguably cross serious ethical lines. The film doesn’t adequately address these issues, unfortunately, resulting in a less than satisfying final impression.