Movie Review: Take Your Pills

Take Your Pills ** / *****

Directed by: Alison Klayman.

 

Alison Klayman’s Take Your Pills is an advocacy documentary that basically argues – not incorrectly – that as a society, we are over medicating our children – one drugs like Ritalin and Adderall, which is essentially speed. We get them hooked on the drugs, that help keep them alert and focused, with no real plan to ever get them off the drugs – and as a result, we have a society of children on the drugs, who grow into adults who are still on the drugs. The most striking moment in the film comes late, when a college senior says that when they get out into the world, they don’t think they’ll continue to use Adderall – that they’ll be able to leave work behind at work, not like in university where you have to stay up all night to study, and then immediately cuts to an adult who says he takes Adderall for work only, and if he didn’t have to work, he’d stop taking the drug. It’s a moment that rings true, because everyone is always coming up with excuses why they “need” something they want, but that at some point in the future, they will stop.

 

Had the film had more moments like that, it would probably work better than it ultimately does. My tolerance for this type of advocacy documentary usually is relatively low, and Take Your Pills is an example as to why they don’t work well for me. While director Alison Klayman at least gives people the opportunity to defend the use of these drugs – particularly doctors who don’t see a problem prescribing it, or in one ill-advised side story, a company who sells non-prescription versions of the drugs – it’s clear that Klayman doesn’t really agree with them, and rushes them off the screen rather quickly. She is, in effect, paying lip service to that side, while spending most of the rest of the time condemning the over prescription of the drugs. It’s a position that I happen to agree with – not every restless kid needs to be on the drug, and because so many kids are on it, it creates a culture where something as serious as giving your child a prescription drug on a permanent basis is seen as routine. Yet Klayman casts her net so wide in finding the stories of those effected, and the doctors and researchers who have something to say about it, the personal stories really do get lost. In the case of the trees getting lost for the forest.

 

That is a shame, because there are some interesting people in the documentary – the former NFL player, who started taking Adderall as a professional, and needed to get a doctor’s note, so it would be considered a performance enhancing drug for instance. Or the college artist who has been on it since third grade, and it bitter about it – and wants off of it, and his mother, who expressed at least some regret, while still defending that position. The movie has quick sequences dealing with use of the drug at university in general – where kids with prescriptions sell it to those who don’t or on Wall Street, where is has replaced cocaine as the stimulant of choice. All of these stories could be docs of their own – at least short ones – and perhaps would have been more interesting than Take Your Pills ends up being.

 

What we do get is a mountain of statistics thrown at us – and as much as Klayman tries to jazz up the style in those presentations, there is only so much you can do with, and a lot of doctors and researchers explaining the effects, the dangers, and how similar the drugs really are to meth. They even compare it to the opioid crisis in America.

 

The problem ultimately is though that Klayman doesn’t really find anything new here. This has been a well-documented problem for years now, so Klayman’s doc feels like it’s too little too late. There is some good stuff, but it’s buried under a mountain of good intentions.

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Movie Review: Wild Wild Country

Wild Wild Country **** / *****

Directed by: Maclain Way & Chapman Way.

 

The recent glut of documentary series that span multiple episodes and many hours telling a single story has mostly been a blessing – giving filmmakers a chance to more fully explore complex subjects that a two or even three hour runtime couldn’t adequately handle. At their best – like Ezra Edelman’s astounding O.J. Made in America, the result can be a masterpiece – one of the best documentaries ever made. There can be downsides of course (something like The Keepers doesn’t earn its runtime), but for the most part, I am glad of this recent development. The best new doc series in this vein has to be Maclain and Chapman Way’s Wild Wild Country – which as the title implies really is a wild ride, telling the complex and extremely entertaining story of what happened when an Indian Guru – known as Bhagwan and his followers – known as the Rajneeshees – bought an expansive plot of land in remote Oregon, and built a massive community there.

 

The film has a traditional documentary feel – with a host of archival footage and news reports from the time (the early to mid-1980s), and modern interviews with many of the participants. From the Rajneeshees point of view, this new area was paradise. It was a large, rocky plot of land that no one was using – they exerted great effort and spent a lot of resources turning it in a community full of homes, restaurants, a massive hall used for worship and everything else you could imagine. The Bhagwan was extremely wealthy – he owned many Rolls Royce’s for example. Most of the money likely came from his followers – mostly white Americans or Europeans, some with a lot of money. They all came willingly, and they all wore red. This was either a glorious new religious movement or a cult depending on the way you looked at it.

 

Problems arise though when the Rajneeshees start angering the locals in the nearest town – Antelope, which doesn’t even have 100 people, and most of them are older, retirees. They, and other, Oregonians, don’t like the way the Rajneeshees are using the land – and want to force them out. The Rajneeshees respond by getting involved in local politics. What follows is absolutely crazy – and will eventually include mass poisoning, arson, assassination plots and massive American government bureaucracy exerting its will on the Rajneeshees.

 

Throughout it all, the Way brothers never really express their opinion on things – never really lead the audience in what to think. Certainly, you can understand the point-of-view of the Oregonians, who thought they were living in a small, sleepy town – only to be invaded by a loud, red clad horde, who believed in (and practiced) free love, and eventually essentially took over their town – buying everything they could, including the local diner (who local recalls how they went from frying bacon on the grill to bananas – and never went back). But it’s hard to argue with the Rajneeshees either that a lot of it was motivated by bigotry, and they were just trying to practice their religion – which they have every right to do. The most fascinating character in the whole series is undeniably Ma Anand Sheela, the Bhagwan’s personal secretary, who pretty much ran the commune for years, as the Bhagwan remained silent. She reveled in all the media attention she received – and she kept on receiving it because she gave fiery, often profane interviews. She is a lot calmed in the modern interviews with her now, but you still feel that same passion from her. She is also the catalyst for much of what happens. One wonders what would have happened without her – would the Rajneeshees been run out sooner, or would eventually they have been allowed to go about their lives?

 

The film runs in six parts, each lasting just over an hour – and it really does earn that runtime (in fact, you could argue it could just a little bit longer – it does feel like some of what happens is rushed). The Way brothers know what they’re doing here – the pacing never flags, which is accomplishment when dealing with some stuffy government bureaucrats explaining in detail what they were doing, and each part ends with perhaps a little too explosive of a cliffhanger to make sure you’ll keep watching – and it works (I may well have watched all six in a row had I not started part one at 11pm one night). Most retellings of this story, understandably, concentrate on some of the more explosive details – the mass salmonella poisoning for example – but by taking so much time, Wild Wild Country puts everything in context, and tells an wildly entertaining, strange story – and really is one of the best docs you will see this year.

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Movie Review: Jane

Jane *** ½ / *****

Directed by: Brett Morgen.

Written by: Brett Morgen.

 

The discovery, in 2013, of over 100 hours of footage of Jane Goodall during her time in Gombe in the 1960s – thought lost forever – is the basis for Brett Morgen’s documentary Jane. He was clearly the right director for the material – as he’s proven with The Kid Stays in the Picture (with Nanette Burstein) about Robert Evans, the best ever 30 for 30 Documentary June 17^th, 1994 – about a very busy day in sports news, and no just because it was the day O.J. went on that chase in the white Bronco, and Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck, Morgen is incredibly skilled at taking hours and hours of footage, and editing it together in a way that makes it all flow, given it broader resonance. Having Goodall herself still around to narrate the film helps too – it allows her to expand on the context of what we’re seeing, and why it was so groundbreaking. Add in Phillip Glass’ best score in years, and you really do have one of the year’s best looking and sounding docs. My only real complaint about the film – which does mar it somewhat – is that someone decided that the film had to be a fairly typical biopic about Goodall’s life as well – forcing the material into a direction that isn’t quite as interesting as the footage itself.

 

That footage was shot by Hugo Van Lawick – assigned by National Geographic to go out and film Goodall after she had already been in Gombe for a while – and was making remarkable discoveries. The footage is stunning and beautiful – and looks amazing, not something you really expect when it was shot more than 50 years ago, and has been “lost” for most of that time. The colors are glorious, and you understand by Van Lawick is considered one of the best nature photographers in history.

 

The film though is – and rightly so – mostly Goodall’s story. And it is remarkable when you consider that when she went into the jungle to try and observe chimps, she was a 26 year old secretary, with no scientific training, who was afraid of the chimps because she didn’t know she was supposed to be. Yet, she was able to observe them, in part because, she just didn’t go anywhere – they got used to her. Her journey from an untrained secretary to one of the most justly celebrated scientists of her era is remarkable. It is the stuff of Hollywood dreams of when they set about making a biopic.

 

And perhaps that’s why the material is ended up being shaped that way, especially as the film goes along. It’s odd no one has thought to make a fictionalized biopic of the woman – she’s certainly less controversial than Diann Fossey, who was the subject of Gorillas in the Mist (1988) with Sigourney Weaver (although, perhaps that project was greenlit because of Fossey’s murder a few years before, making her even more famous than she already was). The film is able to draw some fascinating observations from Goodall about her life – and how she learned a lot about herself from her time with the chimps – especially as it relates to be a mother (one wonders if a man would be asked this question, but Goodall seems comfortable with it, so whatever). The film foregrounds the budding romance between Goodall and Van Lawick, and later their son, Grub. Personally, I would have liked more on the chimps, and what was there – and less shots of the modern Goodall, who is clearly invaluable to the film, but also interrupts the visual flow of the film.

 

Still, it’s hard to complain about Jane – which features remarkable sights and sounds throughout, and really does tell a fascinating story – even if it’s one we’ve heard before, it’s not one we’ve seen quite this way.

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Movie Reviw: Rat Film

Rat Film **** / *****

Directed by: Theo Anthony.

 

I often complain that too many documentaries use the rather boring point and shoot style – filming interviews with various talking heads, and mixing them with archival footage in a style that is basically interchangeable from doc to doc – even good ones. Once in a while though, we get something truly unique – and Theo Anthony’s Rat Film certainly qualifies on that level. The film is an 80 minute look at the rat problem in Baltimore – both historically, and in the present, and is a strange mixture of styles and tones, going from deadpan humor, to the surreal, to the tragic, and back again. The film is a tone poem that gets at something real about the city it documents. As one of the exterminators says in the film – Baltimore doesn’t have a rat problem, it has a people problem.

 

That statement, is probably the thesis of the film. Rats are inevitable when you cram this many people into this small of a space, and have rundown buildings, and garbage buildup all around. The rats are going to come. The film documents the historical way that Baltimore first dealt with the problem – including block by block maps by Kurt Richter, who mapped out everywhere rats went, to better able to deal with them. There’s also some other, strange details in the film – like the opening, where we see a rat try and escape a City of Baltimore Garbage Can – rats can jump up to 32 inches, the City’s cans are 34 inches. That rat isn’t getting out.

 

Watching Rat Film is an odd experience, as you never quite know where the film is going to go next. There are scenes literally from the rat’s point of view in the film – virtual reality simulations for example, and then Anthony will veer off to the various, creative ways the residents of the city deal with rats themselves. If they weren’t rats, you’d likely call some of what they do cruel – and maybe it is – but they all have to some way of dealing with it.

 

What emerges over time though is a portrait of this city which is forced to deal with the rat problem, mainly because of class and race issues. Eventually, everything comes back down to that, and always will unless people actually want to do something about the problem. They don’t. Rat Film is an odd film – I almost don’t know what else to say about it, because it is so strange – but it’s certainly one of the most unique docs of the year – and a film that will likely last in your mind after most docs have vanished. Seek it out.

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Movie Review: The Final Year

The Final Year *** / *****

Directed by: Greg Barker.

 

I cannot help but wonder if The Final Year – a well-made documentary, that follows around Barack Obama and a few members of his foreign policy team during their final year in office would be as good as it is if Hillary Clinton had won the election in 2016 – as clearly everyone in this movie thought she was going to. The film has back stage access to the likes of Secretary of State John Kerry, UN Ambassador Samantha Power and speechwriter/advisor Ben Rhodes – and occasionally Obama himself – as they go about their work, You cannot say that any of them are completely unguarded – they know a camera is there after all, and they choose their words wisely, but they all seem less scripted than when you see them at press conferences and the like. The filmmaker, Greg Barker, clearly likes all of the people he’s making the documentary about – and more importantly, agrees with them. Had Clinton won, and like-minded people took over the roles, than The Final Year may have look like nothing more than idol worship.

 

But of course, Clinton didn’t win – Donald Trump did – and so the movie, unintentionally, captures something else entirely. There are the earlier moments in the film – when everyone is so sure Trump is going to lose, where Rhodes seems almost smug about the possibility of a Trump presidency – he laughs a little. If Kerry and particularly Powers seem like idealists, Rhodes never quite does – he believes in everything he’s doing of course, but he’s more a political animal. This gets him in trouble early in the film, when a New York Magazine profile about him comes out, and publishes a few choice quotes – in particular ones where he basically calls the Washington press corps stupid. As the film progresses – particularly as it gets to election night – it’s more like watching a slow moving car crash that they didn’t see coming. In the section in the months after the election, everyone seems to be a daze – not quite believing what has happened.

 

We’ve seen this in a few documentaries now of course. I saw it in Get Me Roger Stone, about the former Trump adviser as he celebrates the victory and 11/8/16, which documented people on all sides during election day, and even in the new Gloria Allred documentary Seeing Allred. But to see it from the inside of the Obama administration (or as inside as we’re likely to see) is different.

 

Overall, the film itself is interesting in showing how this sort of diplomacy works – the hard work someone like Kerry has to do in order to negotiate all the deals he did in the last year, or how hard Powers has to fight for her causes in the face of indifference and politics, or how Rhodes has to write the speeches, knowing Obama may change them. It’s interesting to see Obama himself on those stops, and interacting with the people. The film is, in essence, showing us how all of this is supposed to work. What makes it interesting is, of course, that Trump has basically thrown all this out the window – he does whatever he wants, and chaos has reigned during his year in office – no one quite knowing what’s going to happen day-to-day. It makes the film a little more depressing than probably intended – even if you don’t agree with what Obama and his team were doing, because it at least showed them as functional people working towards a common goal. I don’t know what the hell a similar movie about Trump’s first year would look like – but it wouldn’t be this.

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Movie Review: Seeing Allred

Seeing Allred ** ½ / *****

Directed by: Roberta Grossman and Sophie Sartain.

 

I firmly believe that a great documentary could – and should – be made about Gloria Allred – the famed feminist lawyer, who has spent her career fighting for Women’s rights, as well as gay rights and civil rights of all kinds. She has many detractors – on all sides – who see her as opportunistic and shrill – in it for herself, her won celebrity and money. A truly great documentary would take on those criticisms head on, allow people with all sorts of views on Allred to come forward and say what they have to say. Unfortunately, it seems like the filmmakers behind Seeing Allred – Roberta Grossman and Sophie Sartain – are more interested in presenting a purely positive portrayal of Allred. It doesn’t allow the criticisms levelled against Allred over the years (most of which is misogynistic, some of it not) to really be explored. The criticism when it does come out is either in the form of old clips and sound bites that don’t run more than a few seconds, or stated by Allred allies (who make up all the interviews in the film that aren’t of Allred herself) just so they can swat them aside the next second. I’d be more interested in seeing a documentary that faced those criticisms head on – and allowed Allred to do the same. After all, as the movie makes clear, Allred is at her best when she is fighting back, and having to make her points to people who don’t necessarily want to hear them – and she doesn’t care what you think of her. I don’t think this documentary captures her at her best.

 

What the documentary does do a decent job of is going over the highlights of Allred’s more than 40 year legal career, and a few select moments from her difficult personal life (two marriages that ended badly, a rape in Mexico, which required her to get an illegal, back alley abortion that almost killed her). The film quickly goes over some of the big – and not so big – cases in her career. She was among the first to sue the Catholic Church for sex abuse – decades before the scandal broke big. Or suing a toy store for having “Boy” and “Girl” Toy aisles. Or representing the Brown family during the O.J. Simpson trial, in order to get their side of the story out. The framing device of the movie – the one it returns to again and again – is a series of press conferences Allred holds with various women who have accused Bill Cosby of drugging and raping them.

 

The film essentially lets Allred tell her own story. Her interviews make up the backbone of the film. As in the various clips of her throughout the film, she comes across as intelligent, confident and strong. Yes, she likes the attention and the money, and knows how to get both – but if she were a man, she’d be celebrated for that, not condemned.

 

In short, I think Seeing Allred is worth seeing for those who know nothing about her, and just want a quick primer on who she is, and why she is famous. I wish the film dug in deeper, challenged Allred, her supporters and her critics with something more. What the filmmakers have essentially done is made a dull film about a woman who is anything but.

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2017 Year End Report: Best Documentaries

There has never been a year where I’ve seen more docs than this one – 54 in total – and I still missed the one that may be the most honored of the year (Jane). Oh Well, I’ll catch up with that. As for the rest:

 

David Lynch The Art Life(Jon Nguyen/Rick Barnes/Olivia Neergaard-Holm) is brilliantly made, but hollow – they don’t get much introspection from Lynch (not unusual) – but they don’t get much in the way of interesting quotes either (very unusual) – as a Lynch fan, this was way too surface level for me. I Am Jane Doe (Mary Mazzio) tells an incredibly important story, about sex trafficking going on under our noses, and yet I don’t think it ever delves past the surface level here. An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power (Bonni Cohen & Jon Shenk) is a disappointing and dry sequel to the Oscar winning doc – with too much focus on Al Gore, and not enough on global warming, or anything else. Joshua: Teenager vs. Superpower (Joe Piscatella) doesn’t dig into its subject – a young, student activist in Hong Kong taking on the Chinese government – enough to make it any more than a by-the-numbers inspiration doc. L.A. Burning (One9 & Erik Parker) is the weakest of the L.A. Riot 25 years later docs that I saw – it’s too superficial to get to the heart of the subject. My Scientology Movie (John Dower) is glib, and takes too many cheap shots throughout – even Scientology deserves a more thoughtful approach.

 

American Anarchist (Charlie Siskel) is a fascinating look at the man who wrote the infamous Anarchist Cookbook, and spent the rest of his life actively ignoring any consequences that came out of it. The B-Side: Elsa Dorfman’s Portrait Photography (Errol Morris) would have been a killer short doc by Morris – but stretched into feature length, feels thin, if still fascinating. Burn Motherfucker, Burn! (Sacha Jenkins) is likely the most ambitious of the L.A. Riot docs I saw – but perhaps too much so, as it cannot quite shoehorn it all into 90 minutes. 11/8/16 (Various) is a multifaceted documentary about various people, all around America, on the day Donald Trump won the election – which depending on your politics is either triumphant or a slow motion horror film and is always interesting, but never that insightful. The Reagan Show (Sierra Pettengill & Pacho Velez) looks at the movie star President through archival footage, in a way that is both somewhat limiting, but also illuminating on Reagan – and the current occupant of the White House. Rodney King (Spike Lee) is a fascinating, one man show by Roger Guenveur Smith about Rodney King, perhaps the most emotional the L.A. Riots docs of the year (is it a doc? I’ll still say yes). Oklahoma City/Ruby Ridge (Barak Goodman) are a pair of docs, neither of which are long enough, to fully dive into their complicated cases that loom very large in current American society – a series would have been better, because as good as these are, there’s so much more here. Unrest (Jennifer Brea) is an interesting look at living with chronic fatigue syndrome – and how difficult it can be to get treatment or funding for a cure. Voyeur (Myles Kane & Josh Koury) is a somewhat fascinating story about legendary journalist Gay Talese, who may or may not have been fooled by a man who told him he spied on people for years at the motel he owned and operated.

 

City of Ghosts (Matthew Heineman) is an engrossing portrait of citizen journalists doing on the ground reporting in Syria. Chasing Coral (Jeff Orlowski) is a beautiful and sad documentary about our disappearing coral reefs around the world due to global warming – it finds a very good way to make a message doc without being (overly) preachy. Cries from Syria (Evgeny Afineevsky) is the best of the three Syria documentaries I saw this year – and the most comprehensive, which makes it good for those who want to know the backstory, but not great for a deep dive. Icarus (Bryan Fogel) would have been even better had director Bryan Fogel realized no one was interested because of his story – when he looks at the Russian scientist who ran their doping ring, it’s great – when its focused on Fogel, not so much. Kingdom of Us (Lucy Cohen) is a heartbreaking doc about one family, still dealing with the fallout of their father’s suicide 6 years ago. Last Men in Aleppo (Firas Fayyad) is another heartbreaking doc – this one about the White Helmets, who drive around Syria and help those buried under rumble – its immediacy is its biggest strength. Machines (Rahul Jain) is a brilliantly shot film that takes us inside an Indian textile factory, and in a way that doesn’t preach – but perhaps doesn’t illuminate as much as it should either. 78/52 (Alexandre O. Phillippe) is best when it film geeks out about Hitchcock’s shower sequence in Psycho – a little less so when it pontificates about its place in history, or gets lost in hero worship.

 

The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson (David France) tries to do too much – but as a portrait of the long, complex and ongoing battle for Trans rights – through this one woman’s tragic story – it is excellent. Get Me Roger Stone (Dylan Bank & Daniel DiMauro & Morgan Pehme) will enrage you in its portrait of flamboyant, powerful, liar Roger Stone, as he stumps for Trump – he’d be funny, if he weren’t so cynically evil. Joan Didion: The Center Will Not Hold (Griffin Dunne) is a wonderful, loving introduction to the iconic, brilliant writer – whose work is still brilliant and relevant. Nobody Speak: Trials of the Free Press (Brian Knappenberger) is terrific as it documents the questionable lawsuit about Hulk Hogan vs. Gawker – which should be scary for anyone who cares about free speech – but gets less so as it gets preachier. Risk (Laura Poitras) is a film that continues to grow on me, as Poitras’ portrait of Julian Assange and WikiLeaks is a bundle of contradictions – and its all the more effective because of it. Strong Island (Yance Ford) is a very sad doc about a sister investigating her brothers killing 25 years ago – another young black man who is dead because a white man was “scared”. 

 

All These Sleepless Night (Michael Marczak) is a beautiful, enthralling hybrid of fact and fiction about young adulthood. The Bomb (Kevin Ford & Smriti Keshari & Eric Schlosser) is a fascinating, hour long montage of footage of the atomic bomb, which basically acts as a history of, and warning for the future, about nuclear weapons – a necessary film in a year where nuclear war seemed possible again. Dina (Antony Santini & Dan Sickles) is a sympathetic, non-patronizing documentary about two people with Asperger’s getting married – and the various challenges they face, from sex, to Dina overcoming the violence in her past. Human Flow (Ai Weiwei) is a both a beautiful and timely film about the global refugee crisis – a comprehensive overview of the human cost of the crisis. Mommy Dead and Dearest (Erin Lee Carr) is a fascinating documentary, about one of the weirdest true crime cases of recent years. One of Us (Rachel Grady & Heidi Ewing) is a look inside the Hasidic Jewish community in New York – from the point of view of a few people who have left, and paid a price for it. STEP (Amanda Lipitz) is an inspiring documentary about young women finding their way in their last year in high school – and also a fascinating portrait of Baltimore, and a portrait of multiple generations of African American women. Trophy (Christina Clusiau & Shaul Schwarz) is a fascinating and surprisingly complex look at the trophy hunting industry. Whose Streets? (Sabaah Folayan) is a fascinating, grounds-eye view of what happened in Ferguson, Missouri in the aftermath of the death of Michael Brown.

 

Top 15

 15. A Gray State (Erik Nelson)

David Crowley was a veteran who grew paranoid and became obsessed with the world of conspiracies after his military service – and who became a figure in that world with his purposed movie – Gray State. It all came to an end when his daughter, his wife and himself were found dead in their home – after a year, police state that all the evidence points to a murder-suicide, with Crowley as the culprit. While some in the conspiracy world don’t buy it – what Nelson does in the documentary is show Crowley’s decline in mental health, leading to the tragedy that happened, for reasons that will never be fully known. While some on the internet aren’t sure Crowley did it – those that knew him aren’t on board. The film is sad and tragic, and although Nelson makes a few odd choices (including the bizarre ending scenes), ultimately A Gray State is a great true crime doc, whose reputation will likely grow over time – as it didn’t get much attention this year.

 

14. Long Time Running (Jennifer Baichwal & Nicholas de Pencier)

If it’s Canadian bias keeping Long Time Running on my best of list of docs this year, so be it. This emotionally charged documentary, about the last tour of The Tragically Hip, in the wake of the brain cancer diagnosis for front man Gord Downie (who died, shortly after the film premiered at TIFF) really is a music documentary at its finest. Not only do director Baichwal and de Pencier do a great job of capturing a lot of wonderful concert footage – they also capture the crowds, giving you a sense of just how beloved this band was in Canada. Honestly, I’m not sure Canada will ever produce a band as beloved as The Hip again – the conditions had to be just right for it to happen at all – and this is a fitting, final chapter for them. This is the one doc this year that I guarantee people in Canada will be watching for years to come.

 

13. Beware the Slenderman (Irene Taylor Brodsky)

This underrated documentary examined the infamous crime – where two little girls stabbed their friend, almost to death apparently because the “Slenderman” told them to – but also the entire phenomenon of the Slenderman itself, and internet memes, and their place in the larger tradition of storytelling and urban myths. Yes, as a true crime junkie, I was predisposed to like this film – but I really think this film does an interesting job in digging deeper than the headlines, and getting at the heart of the case – and its larger implications. As true crime docs go, it isn’t one of the best ever – but it’s still very good.

 

12. Dawson City: Frozen Time (Bill Morrison)

Back in the 1970s, in the frozen Yukon, underneath a swimming pool of all things, they discovered a treasure trove of silent films from the 1910s and 1920s. They were there because once upon a time, Dawson City was the last stop for many films that made their way around the country – and the studios didn’t want the prints back, so they just disposed of them. The documentary Dawson City: Frozen Time is a fascinating one – it looks at the films themselves, as well as the history of Dawson in the decades since they stopped being a thriving gold rush town, into the place it is today. The film is part film history – and part real history – and all of it is fascinating.

 

11. I Called Him Morgan (Kasper Collin)

I Called Him Morgan is a fascinating, visually impressive documentary about Lee Morgan – famed jazz trumpeter, who died way too young, after his wife shot him in 1972. The film is built around interviews with her – as she was aging and dying – but out of jail – in the 1990s, where she tells of their bizarre relationship, and everything that led up to that tragic night in the first place. The film is beautiful and sad – a celebration of the great music Morgan left behind, but also an elegy for the tragic life of its two centrals characters – who basically destroyed each other, leaving only sadness in their wake.

 

10. Abacus: Small Enough to Jail (Steve James)

In the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, many wanted to know why no one truly went after the banks – the ones who gave out the predatory loans that got everyone into the mess in the first place – loans they damn sure should have known were never going to get paid back. Well, they did go after one bank – Abacus, located in Chinatown, in New York, and serving the immigrant community there – Abacus was hardly at fault for the collapse of the markets, or the financial crisis that followed – and didn’t really give out the kind of loans that sank everything anyway. There was malfeasance – on the part of a couple of employees, than when discovered, the bank actually went to their regulators with! Steve James (Hoop Dreams, The Interrupters, Life Itself) tells their story – a ridiculous one, as they had to go on trial for their lives, when no one could even say what they did wrong. You may never feel more sympathy for a bank than you do in this film.

 

9. Kedi (Ceyda Torun)

Kedi is more than just 80 minutes of cat videos (although that sounds delightful) it really is a portrait of the old Istanbul – which residents fear is slowly slipping away. The film starts out focusing on one of its seven cat subjects – who roam the streets and are beloved by residents, and gets some remarkable footage of them – low to the ground as they hunt or play (or both). Then, gradually, the film pulls back and shows the people who love the cats, and in essence the community they engender by being there. Turkey is, of course, going through massive changes – many of them not good – and while the film never delves into them deeply here, they undeniably play out in the background. Yes, this is a wonderful film about cats – but it’s also about more than that.

 

8. Rat Film (Theo Anthony)

I really don’t know what to make of Theo Anthony’s Rat Film – a weird, strange, surreal documentary about the rat problem in Baltimore. But it’s really a lot more than that – it is a portrait of the city, and various parts of the city that you normally don’t see. It tackles social issues, racial issues and psychological issues. The film shifts focuses and tones throughout and ends up a portrait more of poverty than anything else. As one person says in the film “Baltimore doesn’t have a rat people. It has a people problem”. You live in crowded, dirty conditions, rats are going to follow.

 

7. Jim & Andy: The Great Beyond (Chris Smith)

Jim & Andy: The Great Beyond is about two comedic geniuses – Jim Carrey and Andy Kaufman – and what one of them went through the play the other. The film is made up of footage from the set on the 1999 film Man on the Moon – where Carrey played Kaufman – and a modern day interview with Carrey, who reflects on the experience. The onset footage is insane – its method acting in the extreme, if it’s to be entirely believed (and I’m not sold that it is) – and Carrey’s candid interview shows us a side of him we don’t often get to see – drawing the parallels between the two of them closer. The film is entertaining, sure, but it’s something more than that as well – a portrait of Carrey, that makes him more human than ever before, and one of Kaufman, where he remains the enigma he always wanted to be.

 

6. Wormwood (Errol Morris)

Legendary director Errol Morris’ latest film is one of his most daring – a four plus hour hybrid documentary/drama, with re-enactments featuring movie stars like Peter Sarsgaard as Frank Olson – who in 1953, died after falling out a hotel window. 22 years later, the CIA – who Olson worked for – released some information about his death – saying he was a part of a LSD study that may have interacted with his suicidal tendencies that led to his death. But Olson’s son has dedicated his life to discovering the truth – he believes, his father was murdered by the CIA to keep him silent – and he isn’t the only one who thinks so. You can quibble with the film – it really didn’t need to be four hours for example, and there are moments where Morris probably indulges into too much conspiracy theorizing – but overall, this is a fascinating, one-of-a-kind documentary hybrid, that only Morris could make.

 

5. L.A. 92 (Daniel Lindsay & T.J. Martin)

There were a lot of fine documentaries about the L.A. riots this – to mark its 25^th Anniversary – and this isn’t even the best one. But what this National Geographic documentary does do better than any of the other films this year, is place you back in 1992 – and lets you watch as the whole thing plays out TV in front of you. It’s like if you were channel surfing during those days. The film provides a little context off the top (which is important), but its main goal is to recreate the riots as most of the country – and world – experienced it back in 1992. The film is one big montage – brilliantly edited and framed.

 

4. Let it Fall Los Angeles 1982-1992 (John Ridley)

Of all the L.A. Riot films to come out this year, John Ridley’s Let It Fall is the best (by the narrowest of margins). The film spends about an hour on the decade leading up to the riots – placing them in larger context of what was happening in the city, with the deaths of young black men at the hands of the police, the controversial police chief, the L.A. Olympics, and a criminal justice system people did not think was working for various reasons. The next hour, is dedicated to the riots themselves – from the point-of-view of those who were there (cops and civilians). The last 20 minutes or so are a fascinating coda about the justice system’s response to the riots – who was charged, and what happened. Ridley has assembled pretty much every living person you would want to hear from in the doc – and has made the most comprehensive doc of them all on the subject. Arguably the most important doc of the year.

 

3. Casting JonBenet (Kitty Green)

Most of the reactions I’ve seen to Kitty Green’s wonderful Casting JonBenet can be summed us thusly: “Huh?” The film is not a typical documentary on the infamous JonBenet Ramsey case – the last thing we need is another one of those. It’s something deeper, darker and creepier than that. What Green does is go to Boulder, and hold open casting for a movie about the case – and then talks to the people who show up to audition about the case. This approach would only work for a small number of cases – those ones that we all know so well (and in Boulder, they know it even more). What the result is really about is how we consume true crime, and what we make of it – there is all sorts of weirdness happening here, and the proper reaction is to be creeped out by some of it, laugh at others, etc. True crime is having a moment right now – it has been for years, ever since Serial Season 1 – and yet we haven’t seen much about how we view true crime. This is that documentary – and it’s great.

 

2. The Work (Jairus McLeary & Gethin Aldous)

The Work is a devastating and simple documentary that sits back and observes a four day group therapy session at Folsom Prison – most of the participants are inmates, but they welcome civilians in as well, to help everyone break down barriers. The film is simple in terms of its technique – it doesn’t push, it simply sits back and observes, as these men really do try and drill down into their cores, to figure out what went wrong, why, and how to move forward. It’s a fascinating documentary – and not one that builds to a sentimental or phony finale – but rather acknowledges that even at the end of the movie, a lot of work has to be done. This is an emotionally devastating documentary – all the more so because it never strains in attempting to be just that.

 

1. Faces Places (Agnes Varda & JR)

The great Agnes Varda – who is now 89 years old, and who has been directing movies for over 60 years – teams up with JR – a visual artist in his 30s – for one of the most entertaining documentaries you will ever see. The pair travel around France in JR’s special van – which allows him to print out large photos, which he then uses to paste onto the side of buildings (or anything else he wants), to make huge tableaus. Through the course of the film you get to know both of these artists – separated by so much, yet so similar – and the all the people they meet, which span different walks of life. The film even climaxes with a hearty fuck you to Jean-Luc Godard, which I’m always done for (for the record, I like much of Godard’s work, but he does strike me as an asshole). The film is simple and pleasurable, and just downright fun. If this is the last work from Varda, you couldn’t ask for a better culmination of a brilliant career.

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Movie Review: Human Flow

Human Flow *** ½ / *****

Directed by: Ai Weiwei.

Written by: Chin-Chin Yap &Tim Finch & Boris Cheshirkov. 

 

Ai Weiwei’s Human Flow is a globetrotting documentary that goes from one war ravished place to another documenting the flow of refugees as they flee violence, persecution and natural disasters looking to find a better life elsewhere – and how, everywhere they go, they find more and more barriers to their travels. Ai Weiwei has, for a long time, been one of China’s most famous and outspoken artists and human rights activists – he has gotten himself in trouble many times, but he’s going to keep on doing what he does – which is, sometimes quite literally, giving the middle finger to the powers that be. Human Flow is done in the same spirit, although the tone is a touch more civil than I thought it may be coming from Ai Weiwei.

 

In the film, Ai goes from place to place interviewing the people who lives have been turned upside down by the crisis – and are no running for their lives, alongside their family. He treats everyone he meets with the upmost respect, and while he does get details of their stories, he doesn’t linger on them. He also talks to experts on the crisis, and just how bad it has gotten – and has a host of statistics, news stories and quotes littered throughout the movie – some going across the bottom of the screen like a news ticker. He doesn’t spend much time at all with those who are against the refugees – those who have built, or want to build, walls and fences to keep them out. The film alternates between two types of scenes and imagery – much of the on the ground footage seems to have been shot by Ai himself with hand held cameras or an iPhone for example, in which he captures the individual stories. There are also a lot of overhead shots – presumably from drones – which capture the whole wide scope of the migrations that are going on. The reasoning is clear – he is trying to capture both the epic and the intimate about this crisis, putting any number of human faces on the crisis, but not wanting the forest to get lost because of the trees.

 

This approach has its positives and its negatives. On one hand the decision to pretty much go everywhere on the planet where people are being displaced makes the sheer, epic scale of the crisis felt – it’s not one or two issues that we can solve, and make it go away, it doesn’t really allow for any in depth reporting on any of it. This is, I think, by design – as Ai is basically showing us people from all backgrounds, faiths, ethnicities, etc. being displaced – which should make it clear that it isn’t a simple, easy fix. At the same time though, it does make the whole thing seem so large that there is no way to solve it all, and as the numbers scroll across the screen, you may well be floored. Still, I can imagine someone like Donald Trump or his supporters (Trump is never named in the film, but it’s still what Ai feels about him) thinking that the crisis is too large from them to handle, and perhaps closing the border is the only way to go. After all, how could America deal with an influx of people this large?

 

What Ai is going for in Human Flow though should provide at least part of that answer – he is appealing to our shared humanity, and counting on the goodness of people to find a way solve the problem. It isn’t going to go away – and no wall can prevent it. So, what are we going to do?

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Movie Review: A Gray State

A Gray State *** ½ / *****

Directed by: Erik Nelson.

 

I have never been much into conspiracy theories, which is perhaps why I had not heard of David Crowley, or the movie he was going to make – Gray State – which documented a time in the not too distant future when the government was going to crack down on its citizens, and kill or enslave them. Crowley became a big hit in the Libertarian and conspiracy theory circles – he supported Ron Paul for President, and was a fan of Alex Jones. A veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan, Crowley may have been affected by PTSD or some other mental disorder because of his time on the battlefield – its impossible to say really – but we do know that when he was Stop-Lossed (the military term for when they refuse to let you leave the military, even after your time is supposed to be up – he started to grow more paranoid and distrustful of the government. When he finally did get out, he embraced conspiracy theories, and set about making a trailer for his purposed movie. The plan was to film the trailer, get funded on Kickstarter in order to be able to write the movie (which he did) and then go to Hollywood, script in hand, to get $30 million to make his would be masterpiece. He got a hell of a lot closer than most would have to making that happen.

 

That all came to an end in January 2015 when Crowley, his wife Komel and their daughter Rainya were found shot to death in their homes. After a year of investigating, the police closed the case – determining that David killed his family, then too his own life. Others in the conspiracy theory world are still not convinced – seeing yet another government conspiracy.

 

A Gray State, a documentary by Erik Nelson, examines the life of David Crowley, and his work, and ultimately his death. After he gives a few minutes, early in the documentary, to a few of the voices who are convinced this is all a government ruse, he examines Crowley life in the military, his work in trying to get his movie off the ground, and finally his unravelling mental state in the months leading up to his death. Those conspiracy theorists at the beginning of the movie probably won’t like the rest of it – it comes together as one sad, tragic portrait of a man who eventually will kill his daughter, wife and then himself. As someone says to Nelson late in the film “You’re not missing anything but the why – and you’ll never get that”. And he’s right.

 

Nelson’s documentary really does give a fascinating portrait of Nelson, who even as he became more and more convinced of various conspiracy theories, remaining outwardly nice and charming. There were warning signs early in his relationship with Komel sure – like the fact that David refused to discuss having more kids, despite how young they both were – but that didn’t mean much. To those who saw them, they seemed like a perfect young couple, very much in love and happy. She supported the family, as he followed his dream of making his movie.

 

And then things just started to go wrong, and no one quite knows why. Friends and family agree that they first noticed something at Rainya’s birthday party in August when the couple would barely acknowledge each other. Komel became increasingly isolated from friends, families and co-workers – who either couldn’t talk to her at all, or else felt like something in her changed. All we really have from this period is David’s bizarre journal, and some videos, where it becomes clear that something strange is happening with both David and Komel – neither of whom seem in their right mind.

 

What happened on Christmas – which is when David killed his family – will never be known. What flipped that final switch that made him go off the way he did is something that can never be known. This documentary makes the compelling case however that it was no conspiracy – just the sad case of someone who goes off the deep end. One could argue that Nelson could have explored Crowley’s beliefs – and circle of influences more deeply (it is a very white group of people and there are some racist undertones that go unstated), and he certainly should have found a different way to end the movie (the final moments, about Crowley’s dog are bizarre) – but overall, A Gray State is a fascinating and sad portrait for our fake news obsessed times.

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Movie Review: Dina

Dina *** ½ / *****

Directors: Antonio Santini & Dan Sickles.

Featuring: Dina Buno, Scott Levin.

 

You may think you know what kind of film Dina is going to be from its opening moments, but you’re likely wrong about it. The film is about the impending marriage between Dina and Scott – two adults in their 40s, who come into their relationship with their own problems. Scott has Asperger’s, and still lives at home with his parents – although he is independent in other ways, holding down a job for example. Dina has Asperger’s as well – although not as severe – but a “smorgasbord” of other issues, as her mother describes them. Dina has been married before, Scott hasn’t. Dina would like to have sex, but Scott isn’t so sure. She gives him a book – The Joy of Lovemaking” – and the two share a frank, honest discussion about sex – which is about the only kind of conversation they have. Their conversation sound formal, sometimes even stiff – but the love between them is undeniable.

 

This probably makes Dina should like a typical inspirational documentary, about people living with disabilities – the type of film I normally don’t respond much to. Those types of films seems engineered to uplift and inspire, and come across as disingenuous at best, and patronizing at worst. Dina is none of those things – it is an open and honest look at these two people, who clearly love each other, as they move through their various challenges.

 

The film doesn’t always look like a typical doc – it often sits back, and takes a longer view of its characters, and cross cuts between them as they hang out with their various friends and/or family – showing different sides of the characters. The filmmakers don’t really interview Dina or Scott – but instead, just sit back watch them, albeit in a more stylized way than most docs. The film remains focused on these two as people – both separate, and together as a couple. The movie is sweet in its depiction of their relationship.

 

The film doesn’t back away from the darkness either. There is a violent incident in Dina’s past – involving someone she just calls “the psycho” who had to go to jail after he hurt her (the film shows the scars on her back – in a matter of fact, not voyeuristic way) – although we don’t really find out the details until very late in the film, in one of the most stunning moments in any doc this year as a 9/11 calls plays over an image of a deserted beach. It’s a powerful moment – and one that reminds you that these people are complicated, and have their own issues. Many times docs like this do not portray its subjects as anything more except vehicles to inspire. Dina goes deeper, in ways that are sometimes uncomfortable – but always interesting.

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Movie Review: Unrest

Unrest *** / *****

Directed by: Jennifer Brea.

Written by: Jennifer Brea & Kim Roberts.

 

Imagine being so sick that you cannot get out of bed for days at a time. When you try to, you are in immense pain, and often collapse to the ground. Having this go one day in, day out for years – with occasions where everything seems fine, only to be thrust right back into the depths of pain, and an inability to move again. Then imagine that many people – doctors, those in the media, friends, family, etc. – think that you’re making the whole thing up. It’s all in your head, they say, or call you lazy. That is what people who suffer from chronic fatigue go through all the time. It’s a real disease, and yet because doctors cannot isolate its cause, cannot see anything physically wrong with you when they run all the tests they can, many assume it’s psychosomatic. That just makes it all worse.

 

Unrest is a documentary about chronic fatigue, made by Jennifer Brea, who has been suffering with the disease for a few years now. Once, she was active and outgoing – she married her college sweetheart, as they both pursued their Ph.D.’s. Life was seemingly perfect – and then, this happened, and nothing was the same. Brea is lucky among people with this disease – her husband is supportive (and apparently, they have money). Others aren’t as lucky. Brea films herself – and then films others who have the same thing, and let them tell their stories. They’re all different, but none of them are good. Some people have lost marriages over this – their spouses think they’re making it up when they go to one doctor after another, and cannot find anything. In some countries – like Denmark – they treat it as a severe mental illness, and actually institutionalize those with severe cases against their will.

 

As a movie, Unrest is fairly mediocre. It’s interesting, sure, and does provide a lot of information about an illness that people do not understand, that disproportionally effects women, and is hardly being studied. And yet, the film is also rather repetitive, and after the first half hour or so, I’m not sure how much more we really learn about it. It is certainly an advocacy doc – one of them meant to help raise awareness, and get people involved – and on that level, it does what it sets out to do. It wish it was a deeper, more ambitious film – but you cannot deny that it shines a light on an important subject, and does so with intelligence.

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