Last List for 2015

An average of ten new listings were added each month in 2015. Netflix streams were 71, TV shows 32 and public library DVDs 17. The relatively low number and low ratings means there is not that much I find worth watching. Netflix is best for more obscure documentaries. PBS is best for TV. The library is good for catching up on older shows.

Here are the top ratings for what I watched this year. Maybe 2016 will bring improved viewing, starting with the final season of Downton Abbey.

Home Fires (Season One)	2015	3.3
Newsroom, The (Season Three)	2014	3.3
Downton Abbey (Season Five)	2014	3.2
Still Alice	2014	3.2
Theory of Everything, The	2014	3.2
Neuland	2013	3.2
Civil War, The	1990	3.2
DamNation	2014	3.1
Hell on Wheels (Season 4)	2014	3.1
Imitation Game, The	2014	3.1
Last Days in Vietnam	2014	3.1
Last Tango in Halifax (Season Three)	2014	3.1
Belle	2013	3.1
Finding Vivian Maier	2013	3.1
Unreal Dream: The Michael Morton Story, An	2013	3.1
Dark Matter of Love, The	2012	3.1
Loving Story, The	2011	3.1
Darius Goes West	2007	3.1

Here are my last viewings of the year:

Brothers on the Line – 2012 (3.0). Walter Reuther of the United Auto Workers is a key figure in the American labor movement, a man and an aspect of our history that is not as well-known as it should be. This documentary, made by his grandnephew, helps rectify the oversight. There is too much involved in the story of the labor union movement to cover in one documentary; a miniseries would be more appropriate [Ken Burns are you reading this?]. Understandably the movie centers on Walter and his brothers Victor and Roy as they worked together to unionize the American auto industry, found the CIO, facilitate the merger of the CIO with the AFL and participate in multiple aspects of progressive politics. It is little known that Walter worked closely with Martin Luther King and gave a resounding speech before King at the 1963 March on Washington.

Call the Midwife (Season One) -2012 (3.0). Under the newly adopted National Health Service four young midwives live and work with midwife nuns in the poor east end of London in the 1950s in this BBC series. The episodes, expanded from the memoirs of one of the midwives portrayed in the series, follow the personal lives of the women but mostly show them at work encountering pregnant women and sometimes nursing to older members of the neighborhood. Historic and contemporary social ills are woven into the plots and the young women learn from the older nuns and from the rough reality of their daily work.

Casting By – 2012 (2.9). Casting of movie roles is a well-known aspect of the relative success of a movie, but less known is the process by which casting is done. This documentary sheds much light on that process by interviewing various casting professionals and also actors, producers and directors about their personal experience with the process. At first the film jumps around a bit between various casting people but soon in settles in on Marion Dougherty who pioneered many techniques of the trade, first in NYC supplying stage actors for films and later in Hollywood. An underlying theme of the movie is the fight for respect for the work of movie actor casters at the Oscars.

The Way He Looks – 2014 (2.8). The relationship between a boy and his best friend girl is affected by a new boy in their high school class in this gentle Brazilian movie. The three seem to hit it off until the new one begins to meet some of the needs of the other boy, causing the girl to get her nose out of joint. All three are appealing and we care what happens to them and their relationships, which is not a bad way to measure the value of a film.

30 for 30: Four Fallsof Buffalo – 2015 (2.8). Part of the documentary series from ESPN, this movie tells the story of the Buffalo Bills NFL team which went to four Super Bowls in a row and lost them all. Though they were roundly unfairly criticized as ultimate losers, this movie shows the character of many of the players who are interviewed along with coaches, sportscasters and fans. The people of Buffalo never looked down on those teams which are now revered not only in Buffalo but throughout the sports world.

Call Me Lucky – 2015 (2.8). An acerbic comic from a small town in central New York became a standup favorite, political rally participant and mentor to other entertainers, but there was something untold that made his humor so bitter. This documentary uses performance footage and interviews with the man himself, his family, friends and other comics to first show us his rage against the government and the Catholic Church and then explain the source of his rage and what he has been doing about it since he revealed the truth about himself.

The Pilgrims – 2015 (2.8). This documentary from Ric Burns uses dramatic reconstructions and interviews with historians to tell a more accurate story of the European people who came to Massachusetts in 1620. We know them as the Pilgrims and have a developed lore of their contact with the Indian people who lived in that region and particularly a romanticized story of the first Thanksgiving. A more accurate but less known tale is told in this movie.

Meet the Fokkens – 2011 (2.7). Twin sisters with over 40 years of experience as Amsterdam prostitutes have lots of interesting stories to tell, but this Dutch documentary leaves too many questions about their personal lives through the years unanswered. They share a bittersweet happiness but must also have deep hidden pains that are barely tapped into in this movie.

East of Salinas – 2015 (2.6). This documentary followed an undocumented Mexican third grader in California schools for three years, including filming with his migrant farmworker family and following the efforts of his teacher, a former migrant child laborer who became a citizen and now devotes his life to teaching. But the effect is like being in a forest and only becoming familiar with the three trees surrounding you. We learn Jose is happy and healthy and loves his teacher and school, especially math at which he is very good. We learn his mother has two other kids and a husband (a stepparent of one or maybe all the kids), she works very hard in the lettuce fields and after at least ten years in the US does not speak one word of English. We learn the teacher is very dedicated to his students and tries to expand their learning horizons through field trips. But we learn nothing about the community in which they live, the farms on which they work, or the rules and regulations and politics that vitally affect them.

The movies on this list streamed via Netflix were (though some of the streaming rights may now have expired):

Brothers on the Line

Call the Midwife

Casting By

The Way He Looks

Call Me Lucky

Meet the Fokkens

It's Educational

 

When our kids were little we encouraged them to watch children's shows on PBS. Though they liked most of them, there were times when the kids would grow tired of always watching PBS and disparage a particular show with a pejorative, "It's educational." To this day the content on PBS is stellar. With no little ones in the household, there is plenty worthwhile for adults to watch in the evenings. One PBS genre that is quite educational and very well done is science, particularly shows like Nova. Most of these can be watched on line without cable TV or over the air with an aerial. Technically these are movies that could be rated on this blog, but my sense is to not include them. Suffice it to say, every one of them is educational and also very entertaining. As for the usually excellent PBS historical and biographical shows, they seem a little less like classroom fare, so while they are also quite educational, I am inclined to rate them here.

 

Home Fires (SeasonOne) – 2015 (3.3). As Britain enters WWII, the women in a rural community ramp up the efforts of the Women's Institute in support of the war in this well-crafted series. The characters are diverse and all afford opportunities to explore various aspects of the effect of the war on women and their families. There is a lot going on but it seems to fit together realistically and with good intertwining story arcs which hold attention and make one look forward to several more seasons.

 

The Theory of Everything – 2014 (3.2). Eddie Redmayne won an Oscar and other awards for his portrayal of Steven Hawking; Felicity Jones as wife Jane was nominated for an Oscar and other awards but won none. This somewhat mirrors the lives of the real people portrayed in this moving biopic of the challenging love relationship of a brilliant and healthy woman and a genius man with ALS, based on her book later updated with him. A nicely paced script, quite effective cinematography and competent directing complement the excellent acting.

 

Game of Thrones (Season Five) – 2015 (3.0). With this season the series has now caught up with the books and is ready to enter new ground with a sixth season o be based on author notes of where the books are expected to go. HBO is making tons of money on this lavish production with an enormous fan base and good critical reception. While it is still hard to follow everything going on, this fifth season seemed to stay on the track of the story arc a bit better. The excessive blood, gore and nudity continue even as sometimes the show gets a little too talky. Maybe it is the effect of the looming US Presidential election and tumult in international affairs, but the applicability of the series to contemporary politics and battles for power seems to be getting more apparent.

 

Indian Summers (Season One) – 2015 (2.9). It is 1932 and the colonial upper crust in India has moved to the cooler foothills for the summer in this Brit series. Colonialism is winding down but the country is in political turmoil. The Secretary to the Viceroy is central to the series. He is mentored by an older female family friend who runs the social club and his sister returns from a long stay in England bringing her child and a story of being widowed. An Indian family headed by a war veteran includes an upwardly mobile son who make it to the staff of the Secretary and a daughter who is a law student working with progressive reformists. Mystery and personal romantic tension seems to surround everyone, perhaps a bit too much, taking away from time that could have been spent delving into the evolving politics of the time and place. Maybe that will come more with the second season of this stylish production.

 

India's Daughter – 2015 (2.8). The brutal gang rape and murder of a medical student in India, the underlying cultural attitudes toward women and the galvanizing effect this crime had on university students throughout India to demand changes in the cultural attitudes and the judicial system are documented in this film. The parents of the victim present an enlightened counter to the backward perversion of the assailants which their attorneys attempt to justify. The police official seems oblivious to reality but the popular uprising of revulsion did lead to a blue ribbon commission recommending sweeping changes in Indian law. But the Indian government is not as open as it could be as the movie has reportedly been banned in the country.

 

Copenhagen – 2014 (2.8). A jerky American 28 year old man travels with a buddy and the buddy's girl to Copenhagen where the jerk is going to look for his paternal grandfather to deliver a letter from the jerk's dad who died a year ago in this indie drama. After breaking with the buddy the jerk struggles to find his way around town and cannot read the letter because it is written in Danish. His father walked out on the family when the jerk was 14 and before that the man was just a grump. A 14 year old girl starts helping the jerk with his mission, partly because she herself had a no show father. What the man finds out about the paternal roots and what he learns from the girl about relationships with women is the substance of this promising first feature.

 

Mimi and Dona – 2014 (2.8). Autistic Dona is in her sixties and has always lived with her mother Mimi in Texas, but the time has come to move Dona into a group home living arrangement. A niece of Dona made this touching documentary about the painful process of separating mother and daughter. The movie concentrates on the two women and close family members through the time of discussing the move and then making it and monitoring the effect over the next couple years. The family seems to have an unusual number of autistic members, but the film does not explore analysis of data or seek expert opinions. The story is kept very personal.

 

My Week with Marilyn – 2011 (2.8). When Marilyn Monroe went to England to film the Prince and the Showgirl, she drove Laurence Olivier nuts. A young upper crust man got his first job in the movie business as a flunky for Olivier and provided a much needed buffer between the two stars. This stylishly produced though somewhat superficial film is based on the young man's memoir. Typically good Brit acting, including Eddie Redmayne as the young man, and a very good Monroe by American Michelle Williams make up some for script deficiencies.

 

American Comandante – 2015 (2.7).  Archival footage, home movies, newspaper articles and an interview with his widow are the bricks of this documentary about an American boy from Ohio who wanted to be a soldier but was dishonorably discharged from the US Army, drifted into life as a gangster and then abandoned his wife and child to go to Cuba in the 1950s to fight in the revolution. Taken lightly at first the man soon earned fame as a fighter but was disillusioned when Castro embraced Russia and communist ways. His participation in the counter revolution turned out about as well as the Bay of Pigs invasion.

 

The One I Love – 2014 (2.7). The script for this indie drama about a couple whose marriage counselor sends them to a secluded getaway is clever. As we expect to learn more about their problems and watch them work on the issues, we quickly learn there is something quirky about the guest house on the property and the doppelgangers that are staying there. Revealing they are alter egos of a sort, the script then gets a little muddled between solving the mystery and saving the marriage. At the end, it is not clear enough what the couple actually learned and whether both members of the original couple in fact returned home.  The doppelganger technology works well and the two actors, who we realizer at the end carried the entire movie, give good performances.

 

Second Best ExoticMarigold Hotel – 2015 (2.6). Proof again that sequels are usually not as good as the original, this remake suffers from a muddled script bouncing around between story lines and never congealing. There are the acting greats and some funny lines, but it is a quite forgettable movie.

 

Swingers – 1996 (2.5). Sometimes it is hard to know whether we are laughing with this indie movie or laughing at it. Young guys trying to make it in the movies and related arts in LA are hopping around to parties and bars with a concentration on trying to find a hookup for the guy who has been spending six months moping over the breakup of a six year relationship. This is the kind of film that gets made by the kind of guys who are the characters.

 

Three Kings – 1999 (2.3).  In the aftermath of the Gulf War, four American soldiers discover a map leading to gold Saddam stole from the Kuwaitis and they set out to get some for themselves in this predictably formulaic action caper movie. In the course of dealing with remnants of Saddam's repressive forces, the soldiers become involved with rescuing innocent civilians.

 

The movies on this list streamed via Netflix were (though some of the streaming rights may now have expired):

Copenhagen

The One I Love

Swingers

Three Kings

Hell Again

In the absence of anything better, the fourth Season of Hell on Wheels from AMC gets the alphabetical edge over a movie about computing pioneer Alan Turing.

 

Hell on Wheels (Season 4) – 2014 (3.1).  Better than the last season, in this fourth season the UP reaches Cheyenne and seeks a way over the mountains. The US government sends a corrupt provisional governor who contends with the pre=existing crime and corruption. Cullen the Reb comes from being a Mormon captive to being a supposed Mormon with a wife and child. Returning to Cheyenne he meets again with old cast members, except the freedman Elam who is missing. An evil Reb from the past also shows up and creates havoc, an Irish contender returns with reinforcements and a persistent Norwegian keeps reinventing himself. The low point of the season is when Elam has a life altering experience and how that turns out. An emotionally powerful high point is Ruth the church lady working through the marriage of Cullen and a tragedy involving her foster child and how she resolves her unfulfilled love for Cullen and her guilt over the way she responded to the tragedy. Brigham Young has a passing role also.

 

The Imitation Game – 2014 (3.1). The story of Alan Turing, one of the most important pioneers in the development of computers is inherently dramatic and the Oscar winning script for this movie presents that well with only minor changes involving peripheral characters. The Brit math genius without people skills broke the Nazi code thereby shortening WWII by an estimated two years and saving an estimated 14 million lives. But his life was also a tragedy as he became a victim of societal ignorance regarding human sexuality. Benedict Cumberbatch gives an excellent performance.

 

American Experience:Walt Disney – 2015  (2.9). With unrestricted access to the family archives the makers of this documentary were able to supplement the movie and studio footage and give a much more personal view of the great pioneer of movie animation and builder of amusement parks. The story is told as a straight chronology showing how Disney and his fortunes rose and fell with the changes in America. His fierce opposition to unionization of the industry and his attempts in HUAC testimony to smear union organizers as communists fit the temper of the time, but also the temperament of the man. The nostalgically corny movies he was making at the end of his life are no great loss, but one has to wonder where this visionary man's interest might have led had he lived another couple decades.

 

Hell on Wheels (Season 3).– 2013 (2.9). The construction of the Union Pacific is heading for Cheyenne and Cullen the ex-reb is contending with Durant the scoundrel to see who gets to be the chief of construction, a contest that is continuously evolving. Along the way, Indians as obstacles are replaced by Mormons, old characters pass in various ways, new characters are introduced and various relationships grow or wane. The violence level remains appropriately high even as some of the characters seem to be getting a little more temperate. A credible US Grant pops up for a time.

 

The Big Lebowski – 1998 (2.9). Jeff Bridges nails the role of The Dude, a slacker sucked into a mystery in this Joel Coen comedy. Well-paced with some creative cinematography in spots, the movie holds attention and does not show its age, except maybe for the current political incorrectness of the nutty Vietnam vet (tolerably played by the now over-present John Goodman).

 

This Is Spinal Tap – 1984 (2.9). Documentaries about rock and roll bands typically include scenes of band members hanging out, partying, rehearsing and arguing. They also include many statements from the musicians about their artistic ambitions and pretensions and lots of archival footage from past concerts through the years. This mockumentary either followed or created the formula, but whatever the case, it certainly captured it and remains timelessly funny.

 

Althea – 2014 (2.8). Althea Gibson was the Jackie Robinson of tennis, coming from small town South Carolina via the streets of Harlem to the pinnacle of women's tennis, winning championship trophies at Wimbledon (presented by Queen Elizabeth) and the US Open (presented by VP Nixon) and honored with a NYC ticker tape parade. This documentary uses archival footage and interviews with people who knew her through various stages of her career to chronologically present her rise to prominence and slide into oblivion.

 

Selma – 2014 (2.8). A fine performance by David Oyelowo as Martin Luther King solidifies this unevenly paced drama of the 1965 voting rights march in Alabama. There is a lot of context and many characters involved in the full story and the movie is limited in the amount that can be covered, but the script is not quite up to the challenge. The participants in the story are not very clearly identified especially for anyone not familiar with them beforehand. Sometimes the film seems to be spouting elementary historical facts while at others it seems to assume a greater knowledge in the audience. Sadly this 50^th anniversary homage to those who brought about the Voting Rights Act made it to theaters about the same time the US Supreme Court began issuing opinions undercutting the law. The discriminatory disenfranchisement tactics portrayed in the movie now go by the euphemism "voter ID law".

 

Who Is Harry Nilsson? – 2010 (2.8). This somewhat overlong documentary about yet another singer songwriter who came from nowhere to the heights and then faded and mellowed out is a quite familiar genre of documentary. If you knew who he was, then you were destined to love the movie. If you did not remember him, then you would be surprised to learn he is associated with some of your old favorites. Archival film and lots of interviews are par for the course.

 

Arthur & George – 2015 (2.7). Widowed Arthur Conan Doyle is brought out of the dumps by taking on a real life case to clear the name of a half Persian solicitor falsely convicted of ritual animal slayings, in this Brit mystery miniseries based on a true story. The process also clears the conscience of Doyle about his love for another woman during his marriage. This stylish production lacks a little in the unfolding of the mystery aspects of the script.

 

Don't Tell Anyone – 2015 (2.7). Brought here at age three by her mother from Columbia and now finishing high school in Queens area of NYC, this undocumented girl comes out of the shadows and grows into an activist and supporter of other such children in this low budget documentary. Raising more questions than it answers at first the movie follows the girl, her mother and her three younger siblings born in the US, but then her involvement in activism leads to very helpful immigration law information for the girl and her mother. This documentary is more about the benefits of speaking out in general rather than about the rights and wrongs of the US immigration laws.

 

Just About Famous – 2015 (2.7). Celebrity impersonators run the gamut of degree of doppelgangerness [did I just make a new word?], material and talent. This documentary scratched the surface of exploring the range, from an uncanny George W. Bush to a just another Elvis. An annual convention of performers before an audience of booking agents was an ideal place to film their acts, but though the documentarian did attend and probably film performances, only brief segments of a few made it into the movie. There was a little info on the man who started the convention and we saw some of the performers out of character talking about their pursuit of careers, but we never really learned much about the people or the business. Just showing their acts would have been so much better.

 

The True Cost – 2015 (2.7). A sincere though somewhat amateurish attempt to show the environmental, human labor and related detrimental costs of producing the mass market cheap and supposedly fashionable clothing that is quickly discarded for the next hot fad, this documentary jumps around too much and never supplies any numbers or expert input on what can be done to minimize the impact. A few socially conscious fashion entrepreneurs are followed a bit as they talk about and show what they are trying to do to treat the garment workers in Asia more fairly and an organic cotton grower in Texas talks about being overwhelmed by Monsanto but the film leaves us at a loss as to what we can do other than not buy more clothing.

 

Go Tigers! – 2001 (2.7). This documentary about the Massillon Ohio high school football team is no Friday Night Lights. It sort of follows three team captains as the team seeks a turnaround after going 4-6 the prior year. This town of 30,000 is definitely nuts for its team – in fact many people are so carried away as to come off just plain nuts. The movie consists of interviews, game footage and scenes around school and town. There are some students and townspeople who are not fanatics, but they are given only a minute or two of screen time. The movie was about the team, but a more balanced movie about the effect of the team on the town would have been more interesting.

 

The Town – 2012 (2.6). If the mystery plot had been left out of this Brit miniseries about a man returning to his home town after the apparent double suicide of his parents, there were the makings of a good series. The characters and small town were interesting, but the resolution of the mystery of whether and why they actually took their own lives seemed thrown together at the last minute, leaving the character dynamics as new victims.

 

The movies on this list streamed via Netflix were (though some of the streaming rights may now have expired):

 

Hell on Wheels

This Is Spinal Tap

The Big Lebowski

Who Is Harry Nilsson?

Just About Famous

The True Cost

Go Tigers!

From Last Year to 25 Years

 

Here is another mixed bag, including some from the last Oscars, newer PBS TV, four more from Netflix and the 25 year old Civil War series re-done for TV.

 

Still Alice – 2014 (3.2). Julianne Moore probably deserved her Oscar for her sensitive performance in this adaptation of the novel about a fifty year old linguistics professor who learns she has early onset Alzheimer's. After briefly establishing the woman, her husband and her adult children, the script efficiently moves to the process of the neurologist testing and then giving her the diagnosis. She then informs her husband who is skeptical, but after further testing he is convinced. Together they break the news to the children and the family begins struggling to deal with the problem. The film nicely balances the time spent by the mother with her husband and her children, particularly the youngest daughter whose unschooled pursuit of an acting career is a prime concern of mom. Criticized by some for focusing on the much less common early onset case, this movie actually helps break the stereotype that Alzheimer's is an old age disease not deserving of higher research concern and thereby helps increase public awareness and concern.

 

Neuland – 2013 (3.2). At first the man who teaches a program for refugee high school students seeking asylum in Switzerland seems sort of like a dork. But as this documentary follows him over two years working with his diverse group of students who have immigrated without parents and live in dormitories, we begin to more fully appreciate what he does. In addition to teaching the students German as is spoken in the part of Switzerland where they are settling, he also mentors them in career choices, helps them attain apprenticeships, counsels them in their personal struggles and becomes a sort of surrogate parent or uncle. Two students in particular are followed closely, an orphaned girl from Serbia who wants to go into social work, and a young man from Afghanistan who just seems to want to be able to start putting his traumas behind him. Coming without parents to a new land after escaping trauma in the old is a tough life challenge and these children were fortunate to have had a dedicated, loving and effective teacher to help them.

 

The Civil War – 1990 (3.2). This venerable documentary series from Ken Burns holds up well after 25 years because the style it pioneered has become classic and the war it presented remains fundamental to understanding what has always divided Americans. Using archival photographs and paintings in dynamic ways with evocative music and sound effects, and adding dramatic readings of historical writings of important leaders, ordinary soldiers and citizens creates a feeling that we somehow are watching a sound film from a time before such technology existed. Mixing in interviews with historians enhances context and adds depth.

 

Finding Vivian Maier – 2013 (3.1). After finding a trove of photo negatives in storage locker contents he purchased at a delinquency auction, a young man printed some of the images and was impressed with the eye of the street photographer. Putting a few images on the Internet created a sensation of adulation. This led him on a journey to learn who the female photographer was and why her work was unknown. He recorded his search in this well-paced Oscar nominated documentary which includes many of her images and interviews with people who knew her through her work as a nanny. This secretive artist died shortly after the negatives were found, but fortunately her work has now become known to the public, though much of her personal life still remains a mystery and there is ongoing litigation regarding the rights to her work.

 

Smothered – 2002 (3.0). The Smothers Brothers were an unlikely duo to be the lone protest voice on network TV starting in 1967. At that time the three networks were the only TV broadcasting available and they pretty much toed the line to the colleague corporations who sponsored what was shown. With the civil rights movement growing and opposition to the war in Vietnam on the rise, eventually the anti-establishment voice was bound to start finding a TV voice. Using archival broadcast footage and interviews with the Brothers and some of their writers, producers, guests who appeared on the show, retired network execs, a media critic, a former FCC head and the journalist David Halberstam, this documentary does an effective job of explaining how the show was given the suicidal Sunday night spot opposite Bonanza and became a surprise hit. As Tommy Smothers became emboldened to start speaking out, the CBS censors started a pitched battle which only caused Tommy to push harder. After three years, CBS managed to concoct an excuse to abruptly cancel the show for a reason other than objections to content, which led to four years of litigation between the Brothers and CBS.

 

The Storm Makers – 2014 (2.9). Cambodian peasant families are preyed upon by human traffickers deceiving them into believing their children are being sent to good jobs in Malaysia or Thailand when in fact they become slaves in domestic work, factories, fishing boats or the sex trade, This intimate documentary tells the story of a couple of these families and also shows some Cambodians involved in recruiting and cheating these victims. One Christian convert business man proudly brags about his successful exploitations, while a young girl who escaped from slavery only to be raped and then imprisoned brings the boy product of the attack back to her village and forlornly tries to cope with her traumatic memories. What is missing from the movie is any prescription for how this horrendous travesty can begin to be stopped.

 

War Witch – 2012 (2.8). Shot in the Congo by Canadians, this Oscar nominated drama follows a twelve year old girl kidnapped by rebels when her village is annihilated. Forced to kill her own parents she is abused into fighting for the rebels and then becomes anointed as a witch with spirit powers to detect opposing forces hiding in the jungle. A young albino rebel magician encourages her to run away with him to his village but the danger of being recaptured always lingers. The low cost production values give the film an immediacy and documentary look and the unknown cast adds to the authenticity, with the young lead actress giving an especially good performance.

 

Exit through the GiftShop – 2010 (2.8). Whether graffiti is vandalism or art may be a matter of opinion. In fact just what is artistic is open to debate. A man obsessed with his video camera became intrigued with graffiti artists and embarked on a many year program of videotaping them in action. Eventually he was able to meet and befriend Bansky, the man acknowledged as the king of graffiti and a bona fide artist. The video maker tried to make a movie from some of his tapes but it was a terrible mish mash, so Bansky himself edited the tapes to make this Oscar nominated documentary. Bansky also suggested the man with the camera try his hand at graffiti, which then morphed into trying to create art work and put on a public show like his mentor. Whether the resulting art show is actually meritorious art is definitely a matter of opinion. This movie is different enough to hold interest, but a more straightforward presentation of the works created by top graffiti artists could also be satisfying.

 

Shun Li and the Poet – 2008 (2.8). A one year widowed long time Yugoslav immigrant to Italy works as a fisherman near Venice and meets with other older fishermen in a dockside café where the waitress is a young Chinese mother from a long time fishing family who is working under some form of indenture to earn enough money to have her son sent to live with her. The two immigrants strike up a friendship which becomes the subject of xenophobic gossip undermining their relationship. There is not much plot or drama in this Italian drama, but the acting is top notch and the winter time connection with the sea is evocatively captured.

 

Point and Shoot – 2014 (2.7). After getting his Master's degree in Middle East matters from Georgetown a somewhat spoiled young man with OCD decides to go out into the world to work on becoming a man. Armed with a video camera, he takes his new motorcycle through North Africa and the Middle East to Iraq and Afghanistan, teaches himself how to do wheelies, gets some press credentials from his hometown newspaper so he can embed with US troops who let him play with their guns, and periodically checks in with his girlfriend back home. His favorite friend from his travels is a hippie style Libyan with whom he stays in touch. After a few years of this he returns home to settle down, only to be drawn back to Libya to join his friend in the fight to oust the dictator. Captured and imprisoned he manages to escape and be part of the rebel forces when the overthrow is accomplished. The man turned his footage over to a film maker who had freedom to make this movie which asks the viewer at the end whether these adventures made the youngster a man.  In the absence of any explanation of how these adventures were financed or any showing that the man actually accomplished anything truly worthwhile, one does have to wonder whether this is just another self-indulgent adventure travelogue, albeit with some Libyan rebellion footage at the end.

 

The Last White Knight -2012 (2.7). In 1965 the Jewish Canadian maker of this film had been sent to Mississippi by SNCC to help register black voters. He was quickly assaulted by a group of young white men, one of whom sucker punched him in the face. For reasons never quite made clear, the victim decided forty years later to go back and find his assailant and begin a dialog with him which he captured in this movie. Supplemented by archival footage, animated reconstructions of events, interviews with civil rights workers and the current KKK leaders in Mississippi (proving that the title of the movie is not accurate), and some current footage of blacks and whites engaging in an unsegregated manner, most of the movie consists of the actual discussions between the two men over a period of several years. The old pistol packing assailant maybe is supposed to come across as a bit reflective and reconciled, but in fact he just confirms what bigots look like when they are not wearing their sheets.

 

Get on Up – 2014 (2.4). Chadwick Boseman does a fine job of playing James Brown in this musical biopic, but the performance is sabotaged by a terrible script which fails on both form and substance. Flashbacks have their place in movies, but it is a limited one often overused. This film may set a record for the most times a story jumps around in time, backwards and forwards with no apparent reason for the jogs. As for the substance of telling the story, in spite of extra length we never get an understanding of who James actually was and why he got to be that way, except that he was poor and basically abandoned by his mother – and we are not even sure she was his mother. How his music compared to the music of his time and the impact that it had on audiences is never developed. The only salvation of the movie is the musical performances, which makes one want to look for a JB concert film and a decent documentary.

 

Whiplash – 2014 (2.4). A young would be jazz drummer gets admitted to a top music school where his teacher is an abusive foul-mouth who hopes his pushing of students will cause one to excel beyond all expectations. The student is equally obsessive in his ambition and what ensues is a movie obsessed with the struggle of these two people. There are lots of musical performances in the film, constantly interrupted by the overbearing teacher, so generic appeal of the striving for perfection theme is skewed in the particular direction of jazz drumming. This is because the writer-director was a jazz drummer. We never get to see any other teacher at the school and barely get to meet any other students. A girl who is struggling to find out what she wants to pursue in her education is a brief love interest, but the drummer cuts it off quickly, lest it interfere with his pursuit. A movie about the girl might have been more appealing.

 

Birdman – 2014 (1.4). Shooting movie scenes in long continuous shots goes back at least as far as Touch of Evil directed by Orson Welles in 1958. Birdman tries to take the technique to extremes just for the fun of it or the challenge to the actors, but the result is not fun and is more of a challenge to the audience. This is form over substance, though that is not a problem when there is no substance to the script anyway. This very boring mish mash about a washed up action movie hero trying to become a Broadway sensation is the kind of nonsense that would appeal only to actors who understand such insecurity, like the ones who voted it an Oscar. The dynamic action scenes from the previews do not appear until the last one quarter of the film and I bet a lot of people had left the theater, fallen asleep or were in the bathroom or buying popcorn by then.

 

The movies on this list streamed via Netflix were (though some of the streaming rights may now have expired):

 

War Witch

Exit through the Gift Shop

Shun Li and the Poet

The Last White Knight

Two Thirds from Netflix

 

Two out of three on this list were streamed on Netflix, but three PBS shows from the summer make it into the top four. There is only one recent film from the library (The Hundred Foot Journey), which is rated fairly low. Library holds on some other recent movies should be coming through, but nothing worth holding breath for; there just are not that many good mainstream movies being made.

 

Last Tango in Halifax(Season Three) – 2014 (3.1). During the third season of this Brit series a main character leaves and a new one comes on while the entwining of the lives of the other characters gets deeper. As we spend more time with these people we learn some surprising things about them and our feelings toward some change, just as in real life. With one exception the developments in the stories do not come from out of the blue but rather from new understandings about what we already knew, or thought we did.

 

Closure – 2013 (3.0). Well made on a modest budget, this documentary tells the story of the wife of the director. The African American woman as a one year old became the first adopted child of a very loving Washington State white couple with another daughter born to them seven years earlier. They subsequently adopted two more children. In her mid-twenties the woman decided with the support of her adoptive family and husband to try to find her birth parents. Using some partially redacted papers from the adoption agency in Tennessee and clever Internet searching, the woman and her husband figured out who her likely birth father was. The family went to meet the birth father who was pleasantly surprised to learn he had a child, especially since he believed he was sterile. His family was delighted too. But the birth mother, revealed by the father, was another story. She had led a very troubled life and hid the birth from her family, including from her other children and she was not prepared to meet her past. The movie sensitively shows all the people involved and wisely lets the story tell itself.

 

Poldark (Season One) – 2015 (3.0).  Forty years ago the Brits made a miniseries about this late eighteenth century hero of a group of novels. With a bigger production budget and better TV movie technology the new version is much more visually dazzling, but the best aspect is still the story and the acting. In fact the original, though dated, feels more intimate because of the confined sets. A minor provincial aristocrat imprisoned during the War by American revolutionaries was thought to be dead, but returns and finds his sweetheart is engaged to his cousin and his financial affairs are in desperate condition. Identifying more with the cause of the poor working class people, he re-opens his copper mine, fights the powers that be, finds a new love and struggles to overcome all manner of adversities. This is a story that will still ring true in another forty years.

 

The Crimson Field – 2014 (2.9). The Brit miniseries about nurses at a field hospital in France in the early stages of WWI showed that even after 100 years the horrific effect of war on soldiers and the medical people who attend them is dramatically compelling. The cast is probably better than the writing, with each nurse turning out to have her own secrets and the various characters developing friends and enemies, but there will be no chance to go to further depths as the series was cancelled after one season.

 

Mile…Mile & aHalf – 2013 (2.9). A not too young group of artists decide to hike 211 miles of the John Muir Trail from Yosemite to Mount Whitney and film their journey. Trekking over passes and through valleys the hikers are constantly surrounded by spectacular scenery as they encounter various other hikers who join their group. This is a road movie on foot, a scenic travelogue, a showing of old and new friendships and a quietly powerful argument for preserving wilderness.

 

The Impostor – 2012 (2.9). At first this documentary seems to be jumping around too much but then we begin to understand that it is telling a story from two viewpoints, a family looking for a thirteen year old boy gone missing in Texas and a young man in Spain three years later who may or may not be the boy. Soon we realize we are in a mystery in which the only person we know is telling the truth is the one who admits he is lying. Some authorities are duped but others seem to have figured it out – but we then begin to wonder whether there is even more to the story and whether the full truth will ever be known. The clever way this film is structured holds our attention throughout.

 

Breath of Freedom – 2014 (2.8). The crash course in Jim Crow and Civil Rights history is necessary for context, but the heart of this Smithsonian TV documentary is the archival footage of African American soldiers in Europe during and after WWII and the interviews with some of these men (and in a couple cases with their German wives) in their senior years. Experiencing the different way they were treated in Europe was for these men, as the movie title indicates, a breath of freedom. Many of them went on to play important roles in the civil rights movement.

 

On the Way to School – 2013 (2.8).  Four sets of poor young rural children, in Kenya, Morocco, Argentina and India are followed on their long daily or weekly journeys, unaccompanied by adults, to attend school in this French documentary. There is no narration and little written information is provided; the dialogue of the children and those they encounter carries the sound track. This would be good to watch with children from about 8 to 13 so they can see how much school means to these children and what their life is like; the subtitles dialogue is fairly minimal affording a good introduction to foreign movie watching.

 

Beware of Mr. Baker – 2012 (2.8). Archival footage, incentive animation, interviews with family and colleagues and extensive interviews with the man himself prove that Ginger Baker is a tremendously talented drummer and an even bigger a-hole in this documentary. It was always only a matter of time, sometimes very short, before the drug enhanced serious psychological troubles of this man devastated his professional and personal relationships. Nobody speculates what is at the heart of his problems, but everyone agrees he is a seriously messed up man who happens to be one fantastic drummer.

 

25 to Life – 2014 (2.7). A little hard to follow at first, this documentary eventually tells the story of a black toddler in Philadelphia who received a transfusion in the hospital which gave him HIV. His father was a no show and his mother decided to keep the infection a secret so the boy could live what was expected to be a short life without the consequences of being stigmatized. We meet him in his mid-twenties and learn the full tale through interviews and interactions between him, his mother and various relatives and friends. He became an anonymous teen HIV peer, a sexually active college student and eventually a fully identified advocate for safe sex, as he worked through his personal identity problems without the benefit of professional personal counseling.

 

Living on One Dollar – 2013 (2.7). Two American college boys and their two man film crew travel to a small village in Guatemala and live for two months on one dollar a day to experience life like the locals in this short documentary. The Americans are a bit naïve but their sincerity is clear to the locals, whose sense of community proves that it does "take a village" to raise a child and care for one another. This movie would be good for American school children to watch.

 

The Hundred FootJourney – 2014 (2.7).  Another over produced and CGI indulgent movie from Spielberg et al, based on a first time story about Indian food coming to a small town in southern France in the form of a refugee family setting up for business across the street from a Michelin starred French restaurant. A supposed message about overcoming racial prejudice (ergo Oprah one of the producers) is overwhelmed by the culinary material in this formulaic waste of a good director (Hallstrom) and cast (including Helen Mirren).

 

To Be Takei – 2014 (2.7). Star Trek actor and gay rights activist George Takei is the subject of this documentary profile which uses archival footage, interviews with acting colleagues and extensive footage following Takei and his husband on their busy schedule. The documentary exposes many of the factors that have made George who he is but there are still several unanswered questions and we don't know if that is because the film maker did not ask them or if George was reluctant to answer them.

 

Of Human Bondage – 1934 (2.6). Young Bette Davis fought hard to get this role of a scheming cockney waitress who ruins the life of a promising medical student. Expectedly dated, the only reason to watch this movie is to see Bette chew the scenery as she degenerates downward from a pert flirt to a derelict reject. Her large eyes are famously busy on the screen, but her hands are also put to work subtlety portraying the nervousness of a schemer. Meryl Streep has carried on this hands business in her acting.

 

30 for 30: Broke – 2012 (2.4). Citing a Sports Illustrated article about highly paid professional athletes going broke, this ESPN movie attempts to investigate further and document the story. Unfortunately all that is provided is an unorganized revolving myriad of athletes telling anecdotes and some advisory types repeating the same type of anecdotes. Save time and fast forward to the ending credits for a list of famous athletes who have filed for bankruptcy.

  

The movies on this list streamed via Netflix were (though some of the streaming rights may now have expired):

 

Closure

Mile…Mile & a Half

The Impostor

Breath of Freedom

On the Way to School

Beware of Mr. Baker

25 to Life

Living on One Dollar

To Be Takei

Of Human Bondage

30 for 30: Broke

Still More from Netflix

While waiting for some library DVDs to become available, Netflix continues to be a source of documentaries and a few other types to stream.

Hell on Wheels (Season 2)– 2012 (3.0). The second season of this AMC series continues the central story arc of building the transcontinental railroad, while developing the central characters and their various relationships in more depth. As is typical, new characters of varying importance are introduced and some old ones move along, with or without the violent acts of others. One villain combines a wry sense of humor with menacing creepiness resulting in a perverse comic relief. As we begin to understand characters better, we become more involved with plot developments involving them. The first season revenge seeking by the hero is over and characters are scrambling to see not just what they can do for the railroad, but what the railroad can do for them. Meanwhile the Sioux decide they have had enough of this whole business.

Virunga – 2014 (2.9). More evocative than informative, this Oscar nominated documentary follows rangers in Virunga National Park in the eastern Congo as they strive to protect the park from poachers, militant rebels and predatory international oil and mineral exploiters. Home to the last of the Mountain Gorillas, the movie shows rangers caring for four orphaned animals and watching over others in the wild. But most of the time is spent showing the Belgian man in charge of the rangers and his Congolese assistants as they contend with threats from the approaching rebels and try to document attempts by a British oil company to bribe local officials. A young Frenchwoman journalist uses undercover filming to work on a story about the corruption. The footage is recorded well and the music score is very good, but what is lacking is a context of the political situation and an understanding of the extent to which the government actually supports the Park. UN Peacekeepers are in the area but we do not know if they have any involvement with protecting the Park which is a world heritage site. The Belgian and all the rangers are heroes (around 130 have died in the line of duty), but we learn little about them personally.

Hell on Wheels (Season 1)– 2011 (2.9). This AMC series is named after the rambunctious town that followed the Union Pacific work crews as they built the transcontinental railroad in the 1860s. The central character is a former Rebel who is seeking vengeance on the Yankee soldiers who killed his wife and child near the end of the war. Other primary characters include Thomas Durant who is the unethical man in charge, an English widow whose surveyor husband was killed by Indians, a former slave who has high personal ambition, a Scandinavian in charge of security, a preacher who rode with John Brown, an Indian who has found the Lord, a white whore who had been enslaved by Indians, Irish brothers who are merchants, and lots of others of varying degrees of importance. Though a few scenes border on cliché and the hero is a little too much like Clint Eastwood, the series does a fairly good job of capturing the mixture of lawless chaos and goal seeking sense of destiny, with constantly evolving personal stories. True to the time and place, characters often re-invent themselves as they try to cope with their circumstances.

30 for 30: Brian andthe Boz – 2014 (2.8). From the ESPN series, this documentary shows football player Brian Bosworth and his teenage son closing out the storage unit of the father of Brian after his death. While going through the memorabilia of his career, Brian essentially narrates the movie which includes archival footage of his play from high school, Oklahoma U and the Seattle Seahawks and interviews with family and former players and coaches. What emerges is a man who is embarrassed by the hype he created about himself at the expense of his college and pro teams, an overachiever pushed by his obsessed father.

Limited Partnership – 2014 (2.8). In Boulder Colorado in 1975 the County Clerk decided it was OK to issue marriage licenses to gay couples. Before the State Attorney General jumped in to stop it, a handful of couples had gotten married, including the two men whose relationship is documented in this movie. One was a Filipino American and the other an Aussie, who applied for US citizenship based on the marriage. The INS famously denied the application, with a written decision that, "You have failed to establish that a bona fide marital relationship can exist between two faggots". For forty years the men remained in a loving relationship all the while trying to establish legal citizenship for the Aussie. Interviews with the men through the years are combined with footage of family members and attorneys and archival footage of the changes that have taken place in public and legal opinion toward same gender marriage during that time.

Love Me – 2014 (2.8). Loveless American men and one Aussie seeking mail order brides in Ukraine are the subject of this documentary. The internet matching service they use and the women who make themselves available are a bit eyebrow raising – the pictures of the women look like those featured in escort service ads in tourist newspapers. Lots of money is paid to the service for correspondence translations and there is an expensive tour to Ukraine to meet the women. Of course most men want a woman much better looking than they should expect and our subjects zero in on their targets with what appears to be realistically mixed results. After a slightly shaky start, the movie settles down and we get to know the key couples and see what happens, including supplemental follow ups a few months later.

Tough Love – 2014 (2.8). A man in Seattle and a woman in Brooklyn both come from broken homes, have led troubled lives and are working through the child protective court system to try to have their full parental rights restored. This documentary follows their efforts to navigate the system and make improvements in their personal lives. The movie flips back and forth between the two parents, showing their interactions with their children and with the various advocates, judges and others involved in the process. A brief glimpse at their early lives is postponed, perhaps to allow our prejudices to kick in before we know the back story. Quality of parenting is a matter of degree and all parents have room for improvement. This film seems to conclude that society does need to protect children from dangerous parents, but the justice system should not be in the business of policing quality when the danger has passed.

AmericanRevolutionary – 2013 (2.8). Grace Lee was born in NY in 1915. Her father was a prosperous Chinese restaurateur which afforded her a Barnard college education. Setting out on her own she encountered discrimination based on gender and race and then in Chicago became personally involved with African Americans leading to her evolution into a philosophical radical activist. She settled in Detroit and married James Boggs, a black activist. This documentary was made by an unrelated young Grace Lee who followed the older Grace for about a decade. Archival footage, interviews with other activist and conversations between the two Graces reveal an upbeat woman dedicated to encouraging people to think for themselves and keep their ideas developing through challenging conversation.

Blood Brother – 2013 (2.8). A young American man without family ties takes a trip to India and surprises himself by being strongly drawn to the HIV/AIDS orphans in a refuge facility in this documentary. His best friend travels to film him working as a volunteer with the children and we see that he is very genuinely called to the work. The children are quite appealing and bonded with the young man who is not deterred by their pain and suffering. Dwelling on the volunteer, the film does not tell us much at all about the facility and those responsible for running it. While it is inspiring to see such dedication it is also discouraging to see the children suffer.

Magical Universe – 2013 (2.8). While on a trip to Maine, a NYC documentary film maker stumbles upon an octogenarian reclusive artist who specializes in photographing dioramas of Barbie dolls. Over the next few years the young man and his girlfriend, whom the artist says looks like a Barbie, become friends with the old man and start making a movie about him. The resulting film captures the eccentricities of the artist and ultimately shows his work actually has artistic merit, but we never get to know enough about how the man evolved from a professionally trained artist and gainfully employed photographer into the man we see in the film.

Winnebago Man – 2009 (2.8). VHS tapes of outtakes from what appear to be motor home sales videos from the late 1980s began circulating around in the 90s and went viral once they hit the Internet. The featured salesman in the outtakes was so frustrated and angry that he unleashed a steady stream of profanities that were thoroughly enjoyed by his fans. A Texas filmmaker decided to track him down to provide some context and follow up; however the man seemed to have disappeared. Many thought he had probably died of an angry heart attack years ago, but the man was found leading a reclusive life and he agreed to let this documentary be made. Underlying the anger is an acerbic sense of humor and the film helps us see that blowing our top and then laughing at our anger can defuse it.

Keep On Keepin' On – 2014 (2.7). Trumpeter Clark Terry played with all the great bands in a career spanning over 70 years. He even had a ten year gig as the featured trumpeter on the Tonight Show band. His role as a mentor to young musicians is less known outside musical circles. This documentary follows Terry as he enters his nineties and experiences severe health issues, but nevertheless continues his teaching with a young piano man who is sightless. The movie jumps back and forth a little too much and could have been better with more of a story arc. 

The Black Power MixTape 1967-1975 – 2011 (2.7). Swedish TV reporters came to the US decades ago to film stories about the rising black power movement. The newly discovered footage is combined with contemporary comments by African Americans to make this documentary. The movie comes across as a quick refresher course on historical events, a nostalgic look back at the young leaders of the movement and a unique point of view by detached Scandinavians. Americans today do not remember that gun control laws were first pushed not by liberals, but rather by conservatives fearing an armed Black Power movement.

The movies on this list streamed via Netflix were (though some of the streaming rights may now have expired):

Hell on Wheels (Season 2)
Virunga
Hell on Wheels (Season 1)
30 for 30: Brian and the Boz
Love Me
American Revolutionary
Blood Brother
Magical Universe
Winnebago Man
Keep On Keepin' On
The Black Power Mix Tape 1967-1975

Resurrecting Netflix

As the NBA playoffs wind down and the weather heats up, I tried delving into the Netflix queue and came up with a few to try. The better ones were documentaries.  I have also put some newer movies on hold at the library and they should start turning up in a few weeks.

DamNation – 2014 (3.1). Two hundred years of building dams on American rivers has resulted in over 75,000 such edifices, but now the pendulum has started back in the other direction as some dams are being removed to allow the rivers to run free. Using archival footage, interviews of people with diverse views on the subject, some imaginative animation and highly effective time lapse cinematography of rivers coming back to life after dams are removed, this documentary is emotionally appealing, rationally informative and reasonably encouraging. Dam removal is not just an environmental issue; there are also economic, safety, health, cultural and other factors that come into play in evaluating whether a dam should remain in place.

Last Days in Vietnam – 2014 (3.1).  This documentary covers the fall of Saigon in 1975 in a forthright manner, using lots of historical footage put in context by current interviews with Americans and Vietnamese who were involved in the chaotic exit of American forces. With Americans having long before lost their taste for the war in Vietnam, and after indicating in the 1968 Presidential campaign he had a secret plan to honorably end the war, Nixon took five years to come up with a complicated peace accord in 1973. The next year he resigned in disgrace and while successor Ford was struggling with his new role of commander-in-chief, Ho Chi Minh invaded South Vietnam. The accord required the US to come to the aid of the South Vietnamese government, but Congress refused a request from Ford for funds. Original exit protocol set by the US Ambassador to South Vietnam said leave all Vietnamese behind, but individual American officials disobeyed the protocol and thousands of Vietnamese made it out one way or another, despite the American government not living up to its commitment and not having any organized plan to evacuate Vietnamese.

Darius Goes West – 2007 (3.1). Darius Weems is a young African American man in Georgia who has a kind of muscular dystrophy that causes death usually in the late teens or early twenties. His older brother died of the same disease. Darius is an upbeat kid who is extremely heavy and loves to write and perform rap songs. A group of young white men who met Darius and his brother from working at camps for kids with disabilities took a special liking to the engaging Darius and together they came up with the idea to rent a motor home and all travel across the country to raise awareness of MD and wheelchair access problems and in LA to ask the MTV show "Pimp My Ride" to trick out Darius's aging wheelchair. They filmed the tour and though it is sad to think about what Darius has to endure, he is so inspiring and these young people all have so much fun and love together that the result is uplifting.

Mr. Selfridge (SeasonThree) – 2015 (3.0). With another five year jump through WWI and the Flu epidemic, this biopic series finds Selfridge widowed and his family, store staff and the nation in general weary and worn. Returning soldiers resent the women who took the jobs of the men during the war and many soldiers bear emotional scars affecting relationships. The Selfridge children find love, one with the son of an exiled Russian Princess, one with a former waiter in the store restaurant who now runs his own club and one with a girl who works in the store. Store employees also find romance and renew relationships hindered by wartime separation. Ups and downs in business, with the nemesis evil Lord weaseling his way onto the Selfridge board of directors, are matched by ups and down in relationships. Mr. Selfridge himself begins to make mistakes in both business and personal matters and seems in danger of spiraling downward heading into the roaring twenties.

Black in LatinAmerica - 2011 (2.9). In four stylish documentary episodes Professor Gates of Harvard gives a brief history of African slaves brought to Santa Domingo (Haiti and Dominican Republic), Cuba, Brazil, and Mexico/Peru, and the lives of their descendants. Playing like a travelogue, the professor visits each country and is shown historic sites and contemporary activities as he interrelates with academic experts on each culture and with local citizens. Though Africans brought to each country had unique experiences, the common thread is oppression under slavery and discrimination after abolition.

Wolf Hall – 2015 (2.8). For this adaptation of the novel about Henry VIII, the Brits used the typical sterling cast and authentic locations, combined with a darkened candle lighting effect and lots of hand held camera work following the principal character, Thomas Cromwell, as he became an insider to the King and helped Henry break the marriage to wife number one by establishing his own church and then convict wife number two of adultery and execute her. With many more wives left to be dispatched, this six part series quit at the first execution. The slowly nuanced acting of Mark Rylance as Cromwell is slow but convincing and the darkly depressing décor gives a claustrophobic context.

I Am Divine – 2013 (2.8). Independent film maker John Waters included in his early endeavors a bullied fat boy from the neighborhood who had a burning desire to be an actor and indulged it by playing an over the top outsized drag queen. He was so good at it that Waters named him Divine and the man had a good run at the role, becoming a cult celebrity in independent films and disco performances. To make this biographical documentary, lots of archival footage was joined with past interviews of Divine and current interviews of his mother, Waters and other people involved in various stages of his life. He lived life with gusto but was actually a gentle giant.

What Maisie Knew – 2012 (2.8). The main reason to watch this adaptation of the Henry James novel is the performance by the six year old actress playing the title character, the daughter of an aging female rock singer and a Brit businessman both of whom are often on the road and more interested in their careers than in their daughter. After the couple splits, each marries and the two step-parents make the time for the little girl who they both love in a healthy way, unlike the birth parents who each love her in a self-centered way. The story revolves around the girl and what she sees and hears of the adults, so the young actress is essentially in every scene. She actually seems more adult than her parents and perhaps an equal to her step-parents. The novel apparently had a bleak ending, but the movie goes for Hollywood upbeat. However, since the young actress is so beguiling, you have to feel she deserves a happier fate.

Ali Zaoua: Prince ofthe Streets – 2000 (2.8). There is no doubting the authenticity of the scenes of pre-teen boys living on the streets of Casablanca in this Moroccan movie. Ali has dreams of leaving his bleak life and becoming a sailor headed for a magical island with a beautiful young woman with whom he will live happily ever after. But reality has other plans as his three friends learn. Menaced by the gang from which they have split, the boys set about doing something honorable for Ali. A few imaginative animations are incorporated in this otherwise quite realistic story, but a bit more conventional plot and drama could have given it broader appeal.

Ferris Bueller's DayOff – 1986 (2.8). Thirty years after its making, this comedy is like a technology time capsule, with phone booths in high school and square computer monitors with yellow text. But the anti-authoritarian style still holds up and there is timeless sincerity enough in this John Hughes movie to overcome the inherent youthful naiveté. The Twist and Shout number still rocks.

Boardwalk Empire (Season Five) – 2014 (2.6). The series concludes with muddled scripts bouncing around between subplots and back and forth in time to tell yet again some of the back story of Nucky. Slow pacing in many scenes enables fast forwarding and a viewer checklist would seem in order to verify the many characters who meet their maker. One has to wonder why producers keep making shows about the lives of gangsters, supposedly because they are so interesting, yet they have to change the actual facts and create many fictional characters and apocryphal story lines to hold viewer interest. The best gangster series, The Wire, was entirely fiction but captured the truth of the matter by looking at gang crime from five different perspectives each of which was given its own season.

Hot Fuzz – 2007 (2.6). There is an impressive cast and top production values in this Brit spoof of Hollywood police action movies, but the script sometimes veers a bit toward the serious and the comedy is not really up to the usual Brit level. It is also too long at two hours.

 

The movies on this list streamed via Netflix were (though some of the streaming rights may now have expired):

DamNation
Darius Goes West
Black in Latin America
I Am Divine
Ali Zaoua: Prince of the Streets
What Maisie Knew
Ferris Bueller's Day Off
Hot Fuzz