PBS TV documentaries and a couple seasons of Call the
Midwife plus three singles from Netflix have provided the bulk of recent
viewing.
Call the Midwife (SeasonThree) – 2014 (3.1). It is 1959 and there is a lot happening as the series
continues and holds its quality. A new sister and new midwife join the cast in
their new home and a young chaplain comes on the scene and provides a love
interest. Sadly another male love interest leaves the cast causing a midwife to
require a time away for a rest. The new mother midwife returns to work and her
cold mother returns from India, impoverished and in poor health. The doctor and
his wife want to increase their family. Social aspects of the stories include
cystic fibrosis, Down's, spousal and parental abuse, women in prison, babies
from adultery, alcoholism, and post partem psychosis. At season end, one
midwife decides to try a career change and work with the terminally ill.
Call the Midwife (SeasonTwo) – 2013 (3.1). Social issues confronted include spousal abuse, infant
death, child exploitation, birth defects, abortion and the expectation of new
birth control pills. On the personal front one midwife and her husband go on a
six month mission to Africa and come back pregnant, a painfully shy female
orderly enters the cast, a friend loves one person but marries another, a
younger nun questions her vocation as she is attracted to a widowed doctor, the
central midwife gets a potential new love interest and the building housing the
midwives faces demolition.
The Mine Wars –
2015 (3.0). Mine owners in the south of West Virginia were the fiercest
opponents of union organizing in the early 20th Century. Using
archival footage and interviews with historians and former miners, this
powerful documentary tells the bloody story of the battle between the mine owners
and the miners which culminated in a mass armed march of thousands of men.
Ultimately it took the depression and the progressive labor legislation of the
FDR administration to bring a semblance of dignity and justice to these
workers. Unfortunately the progress made for worker rights has been steadily
eroded for the last fifty years.
The Black Panthers:Vanguard of a Revolution – 2015 (2.9). Following the passage of Civil
Rights laws in the 1960s, young black Americans realized lots of whites did not
get the memo, especially local police forces. Some of the more militant
activists formed the Black Panther Party to arm themselves in self-defense and
to engage in social service work to uplift the black community. The FBI of
Hoover quickly built a huge enterprise in conjunction with local police to
counter and ultimately eliminate the Panthers. This documentary uses archival
footage, declassified FBI materials and factual interviews with former
Panthers, police, informants and FBI agents to tell the story in a balanced and
effective way. By coincidence, a few weeks after the airing of the film on PBS
a Black Panther was released from prison in Louisiana where he had spent forty
years in solitary confinement.
Chasing Heroin –
2016 (2.8). Following four addict stories in the Seattle area, this documentary
puts a personal face on the heroin problem and shows how difficult it is for
addicts to overcome their problem. There is a little science and some mention
of the role big pharma and doctors played in getting people hooked, but the
emphasis is on the addicts and on the enlightened approach being taken in
Seattle by co-operation between the police, prosecutors and public defenders.
Murder of a President
– 2016 (2.8). James Garfield and Chester Arthur are two US Presidents most of
us could not tell apart, except that one of them might have been assassinated.
It was Garfield; and his story is interestingly told in this documentary, using
archival photographs and extensive dramatic reconstructions. Garfield had been
a respected Ohio Congressman, before becoming a surprising Republican
Convention choice for President in 1880. Shot by an unbalanced disgruntled
office seeker after only a short time in office, Garfield received highly questionable
medical treatment in the following weeks and was succeeded by his VP, Arthur,
who had been handpicked by a corrupt political machine.
Best of Enemies –
2015 (2.8). William F. Buckley of the right and Gore Vidal of the left both
spoke with patrician affectation and seemed to have embodied the stereotype of
"East Coast Elites". In 1968 the struggling ABC TV network came up
with the idea of having this duo pontificate during the party presidential
conventions. The result was a verbal blood feud which Vidal won, not by making
better political arguments, but by getting Buckley to blow his cool. Archival
footage of the sparring and surrounding events of the times is combined with some
later interviews with the men and a few people close to them in this
captivating documentary.
In Football We Trust– 2015 (2.8). Mormons have created a recruiting pipeline to bring young
Polynesian men and their families to Salt Lake City to play football in high
school and hopefully also in college and maybe on to a lucrative career in the
NFL. The culture of these Pacific Islanders celebrates the warrior and the men
have bodies built for football. This documentary, co-directed by a man who was
such an athlete himself, spent four years following four such athletes from
three large families living on modest means. Sometimes the line between support
and pressure is so confused with regard to the cultural heritage, families,
gangs, football, school and Church, that it would seem better to just let the
kids alone to make their own path in life.
No More Babies –
2015 (2.8). Young Chicana mothers admitted to the hospital in California in the
1970s for Cesarean sections also had their tubes tied, allegedly without
informed consent. A whistleblower doctor had trouble finding a willing ear
until a young Chicana lawyer took the case and filed a Federal suit on behalf
of ten of these women. The whistle blower, Chicana lawyer, several of the
plaintiffs and defendants and others involved in the events at the time are
interviewed in this even-handed documentary which reminds us how the times have
changed in so many ways.
(T)ERROR – 2015 (2.8).
The maker of this documentary had a unique opportunity to interface with an FBI
informant targeting a suspected terrorist and also with the suspect. Neither
man was aware the other was working with the filmmaker and the FBI also was
unaware of the film being made. The movie suggests the resources being expended
for such undercover operation may need to be put to better use.
TINY: A Story aboutLiving Small – 2013 (2.7). Building a new home always takes longer and
costs more than anticipated even when the house is about 124 square feet and
built on top of a flatbed trailer. A summer documentary ends up taking a year
in this personal account documentary by a young man with no previous
construction experience. Brief visits and interviews with other people who have
built and live in such homes created a viewer desire for a more expansive look
at why and how people go smaller.
Autism in Love –
2015 (2.6). Granted this documentary is about people with autism seeking a love
relationship, but spending several years following four such people would have
made a better movie if it included more background material on what their lives
were like growing up and more information from experts on autism helping us
understand better what these people are experiencing and what society is doing
to help those with autism. One of the men is older and seems to have a more
severe case, but he does have a job which he enjoys and is married, though we
get very little information on that marital relationship. A younger man is
unemployed and in emotional pain about his life, but though his mother is close
to him and tries to help by talking to him, she seems to be winging it without
any professional advice. The final two people are able to function on a higher
level and are in a long term relationship that may lead to marriage. Most of
the film is interviews with the individuals and some with their parents.
The Truce – 1996
(2.6). An acclaimed memoir by an Italian Jew freed when Auschwitz was liberated
by the Russians should have made a better dramatic movie than this one. Films
are a fitting media for highly subjective observations, but here the camera
seemed to spend too much time on the observer observing rather than on the
observed being observed. The broken English spoken by the multinational cast
may have been accurate but is often hard to follow. The production values and
acting are sufficient, but the direction is a bit clumsy at times and the
script quite inadequate.
Mercy Street (SeasonOne) – 2015 (2.2). What should have been an encouraging endeavor, Ridley Scott
producing an original series for PBS about a hotel in Virginia turned in to a
hospital for soldiers from both sides during the first year of the Civil War,
sadly is instead a major disappointment.The problem is with the scripts. The
intention may be to capture the chaos of the hospital but the result is a lack
of concentration on any of the many characters long enough to develop an
attachment to them. The dialogue is stilted and clichéd, with a villain at one
time telling his victim, "What we have here is a failure to
collaborate". So now we know the historical origin of the line from Cool
Hand Luke, substituting collaborate for communicate. Buffoonery is inserted
between gruesome scenes of amputations in a gross failure of attempted comic
relief. Too many plot lines are involved, coming and going without any sense of
organization and failing mostly to effectively interweave. Early episodes
included annoying moving camerawork to segue from one group of characters to
another. The sets and production values indicate an apparent plan for further
seasons, but mixed reviews may foil that, and if it is renewed, much better
reviews for the second season are the only hope for holding or building the
audience.
The movies on this list streamed via Netflix were (though
some of the streaming rights may now have expired):
Call the Midwife (Season Three)
Call the Midwife (Season Two)
Best of Enemies
TINY: A Story about Living Small
The Truce
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