Tag: documentary

Screening Room: ‘The Brainwashing of My Dad’

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brainwashing1

It’s the kind of thing too many people are familiar with. Once middle-of-the-road parents suddenly, after immersing themselves in Fox News and talk radio, turn into angry ditto-heads, sending email forwards filled with birther conspiracy theories and ALL CAPS freakout. That’s what happened to filmmaker Jen Senko, who chronicled the experience in a new documentary.

The Brainwashing of My Dad opens this week in limited release. My review is at Film Journal International:

Presenting itself as a Chomsky-esque takedown of a well-oiled propaganda machine, Jen Senko’s The Brainwashing of My Dad defines itself as “a story about a media phenomenon that changed a father and divided a nation.” The phenomenon Senko’s referring to is the “vast right-wing conspiracy” that Hillary Clinton identified back in 1998, after years of unhinged assaults on her and Bill by a well-funded network of conservative magazines, columnists, TV personalities and talk-radio hosts. It’s a conspiracy that Senko knows quite well, having watched her father turn from a “nonpolitical Kennedy Democrat,” the kind who would give a homeless black man money while calling him “Sir,” into the sort of splenetic crank who rants about “feminazis” and how the liberals are destroying America…

Here’s the trailer:

Screening Room: ‘Boom Bust Boom’

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Terry Jones: What are we missing?
Terry Jones: What are we missing?

Ever wonder why every time there’s a bubble in the economy, nearly all market-watchers and economists seem to say, “Don’t worry about it, because This Time It’s Different”? Monty Python’s Terry Jones’s nifty new comedic documentary Boom Bust Boom tries to find out why.

My review of Boom Bust Boom, opening this week in quite limited release, is at Film Journal International:

Wearing the dashingly ironic grin of a BBC host who just can’t wait to let you in on a real cracker of a story, Terry Jones starts off his musical-theatre economics lecture by pointing to what he calls “the Achilles’ heel of the economy.” What he’s referring to is the fact that most economies are irregularly plagued by seemingly random and unpredictable crises. This is despite the fact that universities pump out a steady stream of newly minted economists who one would imagine would be able to focus their well-trained brains on preventing the next such crisis…

Here’s the trailer:

Rewind: ‘Winter Soldier’

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In early 1971, a group of Vietnam veterans (future senator and Secretary of State John Kerry among them) gave several days of public testimony about the atrocities they had witnessed or, in some cases, participated in during the war. The results were filmed by a collective that included future Oscar winner Barbara Kopple and released as the stunning, grueling documentary Winter Soldier.

My essay on Winter Soldier is at Eyes Wide Open:

… the film is essentially a parade of grainy, black-and-white footage of morose, shaggy-headed vets talking in confession-booth tones about laying waste to villages and butchering civilians; this is not a fun night out at the movies (but, then, neither is Shoah). In general, we as a country have preferred to have our Vietnam horror stories served up to us as part of thrilling wartime adventure tales, like Apocalypse Now and Platoon, or used as nihilistic punch lines in the morbidly inhumane Full Metal Jacket. And yet it remains well-nigh unconscionable that Winter Soldier, a burningly crucial missive delivered straight from the frontline, never become one of the standard texts on the Vietnam War and didn’t receive its first proper theatrical release until 2005.

Here’s the trailer:

TV Room: ‘The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution’

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If your PBS affiliate shows the series Independent Lens, one of the better non-cable televisual outlets for documentaries right now, tune in tonight for The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution. It’s directed by the great Stanley Nelson (Jonestown, Freedom Riders), who turns his gaze to the story of the country’s last great radical movement, and how it was destroyed just before falling apart.

My review of The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution, which played in theaters last fall, is at PopMatters:

At some point, revolutionaries have to decide what else they want to be. Too often, they can’t. That’s why so many successful insurrections end up emulating the very same oppressive regimes they overthrow: fighters are often miserably bad peacemakers. That’s why Che Guevara ran off to die stupidly in Bolivia rather than figure out sugar cane production back in Cuba…

If you’re in the mood, they even put together a Black Panthers mixtape (Bill Withers, Public Enemy, Nina Simone).

Here is the trailer:

Screening Room: ‘Where to Invade Next’

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where-to-invade-next1

For his newest film, agitprop documentarian Michael Moore uses the anthology approach instead of going after one problem. This time out, he’s pretending to be on a mission from Pentagon to go “conquer” various other Western nations, steal all their best ideas on topics America is having trouble with (education, health policy, law and order), and bring them home for us to profit from. This would never happen, of course, because this is America and if the idea didn’t originate here then, well, it clearly couldn’t be any good. Moore knows that, thusly the quixotic nature of this serio-comic broadside.

Where to Invade Next is opening later this week. My review is at PopMatters:

Moore starts in Italy. There, hanging out with a pair of serious vacationers, he does a good job of making just about every employed American in the audience sick with envy by pointing out the weeks and weeks of paid leave the average Italian gets just by dint of being Italian. The look of disbelief on the Italian man’s face when Moore tells him how many weeks of legally paid vacation Americans are entitled to (“None”) is so profound it is as though he has been told Americans still believe that the world is flat…

Here’s the trailer:

Screening Room: ‘In Jackson Heights’

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Manhattan is just a half-hour away. (Zipporah Films)
Manhattan is just a half-hour away. (Zipporah Films)

The latest nonfiction opus from Frederick Wiseman is a portrait of the mind-bogglingly diverse Jackson Heights neighborhood in Queens (167 languages at last count). It’s a rich and endlessly fascinating study of what multicultural America really looks like.

In Jackson Heights is playing now in limited release and should make its way to PBS within the next year or so. My review is at PopMatters:

Frederick Wiseman’s In Jackson Heights doesn’t just celebrate a neighborhood; it immerses you in it. A working-class neighborhood in Queens, about a half-hour’s subway ride from Manhattan, Jackson Heights features a patchwork of ethnicities and an ever-transitioning gateway for immigrants looking to get a toehold in America. Home to so many thousands of the documented and undocumented immigrants living alongside a stewpot of native-borns, Jackson Heights is a living civics laboratory for the ever-evolving American experiment…

Here’s the trailer:

Screening Room: ‘All Things Must Pass’

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allthingsmustpass1

In 1999, Tower Records had $1 billion in revenue. They were bankrupt by 2006.

All Things Must Pass: The Rise and Fall of Tower Records is playing now in limited release. My review is at PopMatters:

Nobody who ever went into the original batch of Tower Records outlets in California ever said, “What a beautiful space.” In that way, they were axiomatic of the greatest record stores, which understood space pragmatically, slapping up some posters and cardboard displays, but otherwise committing to the mission. That was, of course, to sell records. This dedication is one way record stores were different from bookstores, which usually tried to give their customers a slapdash kind of ambiance: a few sprung couches, a little café, maybe a calico cat curling around your legs while you browsed in Fiction, A–H…

Here’s the trailer:

Screening Room: ‘Drunk Stoned Brilliant Dead’

On By chrisbarsantiIn Film - New, Film-Documentary, Publishing / Media1 Comment
'National Lampoon': Funny people (Magnolia)
‘Drunk Stoned Brilliant Dead: The Story of the National Lampoon’: Funny people (Magnolia)

Natlamp73Remember magazines? National Lampoon was one of the best. Beyond serving as something of a thinking man’s Mad, it also fostered that upswell of talent coming out of the Chicago comedy improv scene in the 1970s and midwifed them to stardom at Saturday Night Live. Sure, that ultimately led to Coneheads the movie, but we can probably lay that more at Lorne Michaels’ feet.

Drunk Stoned Brilliant Dead: The Story of the National Lampoon is playing now in limited release; my review is at PopMatters:

People who only know National Lampoon as that odd possessive sitting atop posters for Animal House andVacation might be surprised by some details provided by Drunk Stoned Brilliant Dead: The Story of the National Lampoon. They might not have realized the depth of talent the comedy magazine cultivated. Or they might be surprised learn this monthly publication had a circulation of one million. Or that Chevy Chase was once considered a comedy genius…

Here’s the trailer:

Screening Room: ‘The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution’

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"Power to the people" (PBS)
“Power to the people” (PBS)

After a series of documentaries that dug into the 20th century African American experience with uncommon power, Stanley Nelson (Jonestown, Freedom Riders) turns his gaze to the story of the country’s last great radical movement, and how it was destroyed just before falling apart.

My review of The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution, which opens this week in limited release and will likely come to PBS sometime soon, is at PopMatters:

At some point, revolutionaries have to decide what else they want to be. Too often, they can’t. That’s why so many successful insurrections end up emulating the very same oppressive regimes they overthrow: fighters are often miserably bad peacemakers. That’s why Che Guevara ran off to die stupidly in Bolivia rather than figure out sugar cane production back in Cuba…

Here is the trailer:

Screening Room: ‘Best of Enemies’

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William F. Buckley and Gore Vidal think of new insults for each other. (Magnolia)
William F. Buckley and Gore Vidal think of new insults for each other. (Magnolia)
In 1968, the third-place network ABC wasn’t sure how to make a splash with its presidential convention coverage. Since they didn’t have much money, they went for a gimmick. Over the course of ten nights, Gore Vidal and William F. Buckley would debate the issues of the conventions. Or just throw insults at each other.

Best of Enemies is playing now in limited release. My review is at PopMatters:

Best of Enemies is a fascinating film about brilliant people behaving stupidly. It would be reassuring in a way to think that in the distant past, there was a time when American intellectuals could duke it out on the public stage before a mass audience held rapt by the sight and sound of ideas being wrestled into coherent form. We know such things don’t happen anymore. How many Americans can even name two intellectuals to have such a debate?…

Here’s the trailer:

Screening Room: ‘Amy’

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Amy1
One face of ‘Amy’ (A24)

Amy-posterIt’s too early to start really talking Oscars, but if we were, then Asif Kapadia’s moving and unromantic Amy would be a strong contender.

Amy opens in theaters tomorrow; seek it out. You can read my review at Film Racket:

Before becoming a punch line for tabloid-huffing, talkshow-loving misery vampires, Amy Winehouse wasn’t just a star talent, she was a constellation unto herself. Bursting into the moribund pop music scene of the early 2000s with verve and danger, she came on like some savvier Billie Holiday in a field of Auto-Tune tarts. There’s a heavy dose of that briefly blazing performer in Asif Kapadia’s potent, powerful documentary Amy…

Here’s the trailer:

Now Playing: ‘Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck”

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Young Cobain (HBO Films)
Young Cobain (HBO Films)

Even though it was produced in association with Kurt Cobain’s family, the new documentary about his tragically short life has a bracing honesty that makes it required viewing.

Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck is playing now in limited release and also on HBO. My review is at Film Racket:

Brett Morgen’s deft and fascinating documentary about America’s last true rock star is shot through with inevitability. But that never detracts from the raw emotional power of a film made up mostly of Kurt Cobain’s nakedly confessional journals and recordings. The film’s story can’t help but carry a mythic quality. That doesn’t mean that Morgen, working with the authorization of Cobain’s family, created a worshipful monument to genius. It’s true that to appreciate Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck, it certainly helps to at least approve of a Nirvana song here and there. But this isn’t a fan’s valentine. At times it feels closer to hate mail from the artist himself…

Here’s the trailer:

New in Theaters: ‘The Salt of the Earth’

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One of Sebastio Salgado's iconic photographs in 'The Salt of the Earth' (Sony Pictures Classics)
One of Sebastio Salgado’s iconic photographs in ‘The Salt of the Earth’ (Sony Pictures Classics)

Given a brief Academy Awards run late last year, Wim Wenders’ magisterial documentary about photographer Sebastio Salgado is finally getting a proper theatrical release this week.

My review is at Film Journal International:

“A photographer,” Wim Wenders intones at the start of his elegantly respectful documentary on Sebastião Salgado, “is literally somebody painting with light.” This definition sounds grand, to be sure. But the act of creation that Wenders captures here doesn’t quite seem to resemble painting. Salgado’s work is in some ways the definition of high-concept photography. His rich, lusciously layered, black-and-white shots of teeming gold mine workers, refugees streaming across a desert, or a line of penguins flinging themselves off a glacier are so elegantly composed as to almost defy reality…

Here’s the trailer:

On the Media: ‘The Jinx’ and Confessions

On By chrisbarsantiIn TelevisionLeave a comment

thejinx-posterCuriously enough, there is actually a precedent for the news that broke over the weekend with a blockbuster HBO documentary playing an outsized role in an ongoing media sensation of a criminal case.

Decades before Andrew Jarecki’s The Jinx played a (as yet not fully clear) role in the arrest of the perennial murder suspect and troubled millionaire Robert Durst, Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky’s true-crime classic Paradise Lost (about the West Memphis Three) bumped up against the realities of an ongoing criminal investigation. While filming the proceedings, Berlinger was given a bloody knife that was similar to the murder weapon:

Berlinger told Rachel Maddow on MSNBC on Monday that he immediately went to HBO, and together they decided to turn the knife over to investigators, even though it put their film at risk.

He said he would like to think that he would reach the same conclusion today, but noted the increased pressure to make films as entertaining as possible.

It’s not entirely clear what responsibilities the filmmakers of The Jinx had when confronted with potential evidence of Durst’s culpability some time ago. But the fact that Durst wasn’t arrested until just the day before the miniseries’ last episode on Sunday is being seen by some as a media-manipulated event.

I reviewed the first couple episodes of The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst for PopMatters here.

 

New in Theaters: ‘Merchants of Doubt’

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This is what lies look like: 'Merchants of Doubt' (Sony Pictures Classics)
This is what lies look like: ‘Merchants of Doubt’ (Sony Pictures Classics)

How do you get people to believe in a lie. Well, when it’s something like climate change, it helps to have a well-paid mini-industry of fakers and dissemblers to help spread the mistruths. Whatever the subject, there’s plenty of so-called “experts” who will tell people what they want to hear.

That’s the subject of Robert Kenner’s new documentary Merchants of Doubt, which opens tomorrow in limited release. My review is at Film Racket:

This is an ugly film, though it has an upbeat spirit. Director Robert Kenner starts off with magician Jamy Ian Swiss giving a deft performance in close-up magic. “My expertise is in deception,” Swiss says with no small amount of pride. Kenner features Swiss so prominently, and laces the film with visual nods to card tricks, because as Swiss states about magicians, “We are honest liars.” The professional charlatans Kenner profiles later would be hard put to make such a claim. The tragedy of the film is that depressingly few people get the difference…

Here’s the trailer: