A Cleaner Last Tango and a Decent Dirty Movie

Seven Flix streamers, three from PBS TV and two from the library make up the dozen on this list. Last Tango from the BBC is set in contemporary Canada so it pulls off quality without invoking an earlier period and without getting the aristocracy involved. The Dirt movie tops a decent batch of documentaries from Netflix. Homeland season one from the library is good enough to prompt putting the second season on hold. Silver Linings Playbook was a disappointment and I should have known anything from the WWE would be a bomb.

Here is what I have watched since I posted my last list. The ratings I give are on my own number system which is explained at the link on the sidebar.

The movies on this list streamed via Netflix were:

Dirt! The Movie [stream availability expired 10/6/2013]

Tent City, USA

Don’t Stop Believin’

Becoming Chaz

Dad’s in Heaven with Nixon

His Secret Life [stream availability expired 10/6/2013]

WWE for All Mankind

Last Tango in Halifax (Season One) – 2012 (3.6). Though the story of widowed people in their seventies who had become disconnected way back in their school days hooking up over the Internet and committing to love has some appeal, this BBC series adds other elements which raise the show to a much higher level. They each have a daughter who is going through her own midlife crisis. One daughter with a philandering husband struggles with her own sexual preferences, and the other, also widowed, struggles with guilt and her own erotic desires. The younger women each have sons, making for even more issues of communication between the generations. The acting is top notch and the writing is sharp. These people all have their good points and bad, making them more real and appealing. Season two filming is already underway.

Dirt! The Movie – 2009 (3.3). This surprisingly moving documentary uses entertaining animation and interviews with environmental activists combined with footage of children and adults worldwide to explain how wonderfully intricate the soil of the earth is and how much we are interconnected with it. The earth is alive and soil is fundamental to all life, something which we too often seem to forget as we neglect the soil and let multinational corporations kill it with chemically toxic monoculture. The movie does a very effective job of imparting scientific information in an entertaining way making it watchable by parents and young children together. Seeing children, urbanites, convicts and people of diverse circumstances all experiencing a profound sense of connection when they get involved with healthy soil is inspiring.

Best Kept Secret – 2013 (3.0). Closely following three young men with severe autism as they are about to turn 21 and graduate from a special needs public school in Newark, this documentary shown on PBS POV does an effective job of presenting the challenges they face and showing their unique individuality. We also meet their genuinely upbeat, charismatic and dedicated teacher as she spends all her time trying to find a program to work with her students after they graduate. We also meet some of the family members and surrogates who are struggling to do what they can to help in the lives of these young men. There are lots of films about autism, many with informative interviews with experts, but this movie defers on those and instead offers a more personal and engaging experience.

Homeland (Season One) – 2011 (3.0). A US Marine Sergeant who was captured in Iraq and thought to be dead suddenly turns up alive after eight years. His wife has in the last year started a serious affair with his best friend, who helped her and her children through their ordeal. A female CIA agent in Iraq is told by a trusted Iraqi informer that an American soldier has been “turned” by Al Qaeda, so she suspects the Marine and on her return to the US targets him for investigation. Unable to get official CIA sanction she goes rogue and gets too personally embroiled, which is not unusual for this brilliant but deeply flawed agent. The continuity of the main story arc and the plausibility of the plot twists are more than enough to overcome some holes in the back story of the possible “turning” and some apparent lapses in security practices in this well-acted Showtime series.

Tent City, USA – 2012 (2.9). Homeless people run their own tent city in Nashville with guidance from a local church and this documentary follows several inhabitants as they tell some of their personal stories and go about their lives. A flood brings the need to relocate the camp and the homeless are met either by community antipathy or inaction as four homeless people decide to seek a seat on the feckless Nashville Homeless Commission. Effectively putting a personal face on homelessness, this movie saves time by not including interviews on the subject with so-called experts who have never been homeless themselves.

Foyle’s War (Season Seven) -2013 (2.8). This season consists of three TV movies set right after WWII with Foyle being recruited by the MI-5 intelligence agency to work as a sort of ombudsman to keep the agency from getting too far of the righteous path in its zeal to kep ahead of the Russians in the new cold war. Foyle recruits his driver assistant Samantha, now married to a sincere young politician. Other than the presence of Sam there is no story arc in this season beyond Foyle taking on his new job and bumping into the MI5 mentality of the end justifying the means and at season end leaving open the likelihood he will not remain in this job.

Don’t Stop Believin’: Everyman’s Journey – 2011 (2.8). When long time rock band Journey lost its celebrated lead singer, they went to You Tube to look for a possible replacement and found a very promising candidate in Manila. This documentary shows the process of testing the man and the resulting tour to try him out. Arnel Pineda is one of those singers whose voice is surprisingly robust for his size. He also has an inspiring tale of overcoming obstacles and exudes a charismatic positive attitude. The movie is a little too long, but it does contain lots of music for fans and a hopeful message for musical aspirants.

Becoming Chaz – 2010 (2.8). Chastity Bono never felt like a girl and her mother Cher says she knew early on her daughter was a lesbian. Only four when her dad Sonny died, Chaz went through a very troubled adolescence and early adulthood. As this documentary begins, Chastity has started the process of trans-gendering into a man. She lives with her girlfriend, who has problems of her own, but who sticks with Chaz as the hormone therapy and breast removal surgery lead her to a second puberty, this time as a testosterone loaded male. Chaz has the support and many friends and family members, except for her mother who seems befuddled and too busy nursing her own celebrity to fully tune into what is going on. Chaz has a good attitude and is courageous about what she is doing, even getting involved with families who have young children who will probably be making a similar sex change.

Dad’s in Heaven with Nixon – 2010 (2.8). Using old home movies taken by his grandfather and father and interviews with his mother and siblings, the filmmaker who made this documentary tells the story of how his father was not loved by the grandfather, how the father was never able to comprehend the fact that one of his own son’s was autistic and how the life of the father took a serious downhill turn. The autistic brother, who is now a successful artist, is a central interview subject and is very likeable. His autism was helped in his early years through therapy his mother insisted he get, and he has been able to live independently as an adult.

His Secret Life – 2001 (2.8).  Fortyish Antonia was a devoted wife but when her husband was killed in a traffic accident she was challenged to examine his life and hers upon discovering that he was involved in a long term gay relationship at the time of his death. This Italian drama does not indulge in cheap comic relief but rather shows a woman struggling to understand first her husband and their life together, then her relationship with her mother and the man who loved her husband and the members of the LGBT community to which he belongs. Without blatantly spelling out the questions, this Italian movie manages to get us to think about the answers.

Silver Linings Playbook – 2012 (2.7). This is one of those movies we are supposed to like, because it is a sincere attempt to address mental illness in a newly personal way and the young leading actress won the Oscar for her performance. Unfortunately, too much time is spent at the beginning of the film showing the young bi-polar man acting out his illness, much to our discomfort. Though we see him in a mental institution, we learn nothing about his illness or how they are trying to help him, though we do see him faking taking his pill, a la Nicholson in Cuckoo’s Nest. After his release, we see the man interfacing with his parents, friends, brother, shrink, police officer, former fellow patient and most importantly, the girl with mental issues herself, who leads him on the path to recovery. Her performance was good, but not memorably Oscar worthy. The rest of the roles are written as caricatures, though the father, played by DeNiro, has a little more depth. There did not seem to be much to learn about mental illness here, other than to be sure to take your medicine and have lots of people who patiently love you, especially a very good looking person of the opposite sex who also happens to have mental issues.

WWE for All Mankind: The Life & Career of Mick Foley – 2013 (2.2). This overlong documentary about a college educated pro wrestler was made by the WWE and is largely a commercial for that business with Foley eagerly narrating his seemingly endless career of entertaining people with increasing amounts of shtick and orchestrated violence without regard to the cost to his body. Somehow the man comes across as not brain damaged, though his body otherwise seems fairly ravaged. Apparently he does some philanthropic work, which is mentioned in the film promos but barely shown in the movie. His personal life is also hardly touched on, except for a bit at the beginning about how he was an early fan of entertainment wrestling. People who actually paid to watch such entertainment may like this film, but the only thing it has to offer for the rest of us is confirmation that we are glad we did not waste our time and money.

It Depends on the Genre

Netflix streaming is a great place to find documentaries. This list is heavy on documentaries.

Since I watch a lot of them on Netflix streaming and usually rate them three or four stars, Netflix always has more to recommend. What I have notice is that the Netflix prediction for documentaries, given to one decimal place, is usually quite accurate, but the IMDb rating is often much lower and a less accurate prediction. I suspect the difference is because Netflix raters like documentaries better than IMDb raters do. So for me, though IMDb ratings of all movies are generally more accurate than Netflix predictions, Netflix does a better job of predicting my likes in the documentary genre. [By way of disclosure, a mutual fund in which I have shares now owns a stake in Netflix, fortunately purchased when the price was down].

Here is what I have watched since I posted my last list. The ratings I give are on my own number system which is explained at the link on the sidebar.

The movies on this list streamed via Netflix were:

Brother Outsider

I Am

A Small Act [stream availability expired 9/11/2013]

Let’s Get Frank

A Place at the Table

Little Girl

Shall We Kiss? [stream availability expired 9/15/2013]

Iraq in Fragments

The One Percent

Brother Outsider – 2003 (3.1). Telling the story about the American struggle for civil rights from the inside of the movement without going over a lot of the same material is a difficult task for a documentary, but this movie accomplished it. Bayard Rustin was a dedicated human rights advocate with a special talent for organizing, most impressively putting together the 1963 March on Washington. With archival footage and interviews with people who knew him personally, this biography shows his many accomplishments and explains how his homosexuality caused his role to become less central and more on the outside or behind the scenes.

Game of Thrones (Season Three) – 2013 (3.0). More new cast members are introduced and old ones end their run in dramatic death as the quest for dominion over the realm continues. There is no overlong dialogue as at the beginning of the second season, but some of the sex and violence scenes are longer than they need to be (aside from the apparent HBO requirement to meet quotas for those as well as for delivery of four letter words). It remains hard to keep track of the full cast of characters and various geographic locations, but the central characters are now well known and the politics, trust and deception are becoming easier to follow. Good and evil continue to be contrasted, but we see more nuances in some characters. Questions arise in our minds about whether honor and honesty are always the best policy, especially when dealing with untrustworthy people, and whether seeking good for the people of the realm justifies using questionable means.

Amour – 2012 (2.9). A retired French musician couple have had a wonderful loving life, which takes a turn for the worse when the wife suffers a stroke. We follow them about their apartment as the husband struggles with his new role of caregiver, the wife deteriorates from her debility and their daughter who lives overseas is torn apart when she visits and finds her mother in bad shape and her father stubbornly excluding their daughter from the caregiving process. A critical success, well made and acted, but not a particularly enjoyable or stimulating film.

I Am – 2011 (2.9). This documentary seems like it should be pretentious, with lots of philosophical talking heads spewing esoteric jargon, but it is actually an easy to take pondering of some very basic questions about life. The movie is made by a successful director of many Hollywood comedies, so it has a very professional look and a light hearted joy to it. There are interviews with impressive people and some very interesting science is presented to show how interconnected we actually are with each other and with everything else. The message about simplifying life and avoiding materialism is nothing new, but the science of connectivity is intriguing and gives new light to simplification.

A Small Act – 2009 (2.9). In this well-made documentary we meet a Kenyan man who was enabled to go to high school many years ago because of a donor in Sweden. We see how his education has led to an interesting career in international human rights. We see how his appreciation for the help he received caused him to start a program to help similar needy Kenyan students. Then we get to meet the woman who donated the money, but whom the Kenyan had never met until years after he started his own scholarship program, and we learn how their stories are even more intertwined than either of them suspected. We also get to follow three scholarship applicants who study for and take a three day exam and then await the results. Affecting and effective, this movie teaches that among its other benefits, education can be a road to peace.

Let’s Get Frank – 2003 (2.9). Former Congressman Barney Frank is an inherently interesting, intelligent and entertaining man, as amply shown in this documentary following him through some of the Clinton Impeachment hearings in the House and interspersing personal interviews with him and some of his colleagues. There is not really any significant new information here, but it is a good opportunity to see Barney flash his wit and political savvy.

Family Tree (Season One) – 2013 (2.8). This short comedy series is shot as a mock documentary about a young man from the UK who starts tracing his family roots like celebrities do on some TV genealogy shows. The man is fairly normal but his sister requires a monkey hand puppet to accompany her at all times and his best friend has delusions of being way cooler than he really is. The relatives he tracks down, living and dead, all are pretty quirky, as are pretty much every one else he encounters. He does meet a new love interest on a visit to the US at season end, after previous unsuccessful romantic forays. An HBO series, it may or may not be renewed and I could take it or leave it.

A Place at the Table – 2012 (2.8). In reminding us that the problem of hunger in America has been growing since the Reagan years, because US government agricultural subsidies are overwhelmingly going to mega agribusiness corporations which use the resulting cheap commodities to process mostly non-nutritious empty calorie food, this documentary performs a public service. The message is delivered by kids, parents and advocates for change. As one of the experts points out, if the problem can be expressed merely as a hunger issue, we will have a consensus to solve it. But the corporations, their lobbyists and the politicians who benefit from industry campaign contributions cloud the issue with economic, tax, regulatory and other ideological rhetoric to make it business as usual. This sympathetically shows the problem but does not present any actual solutions.

Little Girl – 2009 (2.8). With the feel of a home movie, this low budget Italian film stars a fetching two year old girl who is found alone at a playground by an older redheaded woman who lives in a trailer with other people all of whom are marginally employed in circus acts. The woman takes the girl home with her and a note is found saying the mother will be coming back for the child. The man in the woman’s life says she should turn the child over to the police, but the woman wants to wait. A teenage boy who helps watch the girl really enjoys the task. Eventually word is received the mother is coming for the child, so a farewell party is put together with mixed feelings. There is not a lot of drama or story here, but the genuineness of the performances and the appeal of the little girl keep it watchable.

Shall We Kiss? – 2007 (2.7). Not a romantic comedy, but rather a romance of a sort, this French movie uses the story within a story device as a couple in a chance encounter spend a day together and the woman tells the man about another woman and man who were best friends who one day considered kissing as more than friends. Not much of a story but pleasantly enough done to stay for the ending.

Iraq in Fragments – 2006 (2.7). Three segments following Iraqis from different factions during the American occupation of Iraq comprise this documentary. The footage is home movie style without narration or input from anyone other than the people being followed. They are shown honestly expressing their feelings of frustration and resentment as they navigate the mess that was created in the aftermath of the fall of Saddam. The movie also makes it clear from the mouths of the Iraqis themselves that unification of their country in the face of religious and ethnic conflicts will be a tremendous challenge.

The One Percent – 2006 (2.7). A young man who is part of the wealthy Johnson & Johnson pharmaceutical family made this documentary as some sort of inquiry into how the super wealthy think. His father had also made a documentary as a youth, focusing on how large American corporations exploit poor African workers. That movie apparently brought a devastating reprimand from the Johnson & Johnson CEO and the father seems unable to discuss it with the son whom he wants to dissuade from making his own film. After a slow start, and with a fair amount of jumping around, the film does show us some interesting interviews with ancient (in body and mind) economist Milton Friedman, various entrepreneurs who believe they were divinely destined for super wealth, and a few scions who have disclaimed their inheritances and criticized the wealth of their ancestors. A brief expose of the American sugar monopoly was new and noteworthy.

Time for Double Decimals?

It seems I have seen and rated most of the good movies on my lists and avoided the bad ones, so now the movies I have been watching and rating here are in the marginal 2.9 to 2.7 range (60% of the last 100 movies rated here). Adding a decimal to my ratings has allowed more accurate measurement than the Netflix five star system, but sometimes it seems hard to decide whether, for example, a movie is a 2.8 or a 2.7. Going to double decimals would allow a 2.75 in that case.

One problem with making such a change would be backward incompatibility whenever a combined list of all rated movies is published; a movie rated 2.8 before the change might have only been a 2.75 after, so it is not necessarily better, even though it has a higher rating. Supposedly that issue could be addressed by rating all movies after the change in double decimals, such as 2.80. Then on publication of a combined list it could be explained that the double decimal was a later adoption and should be considered more accurate. For that reason, 2.80 movies would be listed before 2.8 movies. I doubt if I will make such a change though, because it seems like too much work and confusion to differentiate one marginal movie from another; and with such a fine degree of separation, the vagaries of mood at the time of viewing could be a bigger factor.

Here is what I have watched since I posted my last list. The ratings I give are on my own number system which is explained at the link on the sidebar.

The movies on this list streamed via Netflix were:

Bramwell (Season Two) [Stream availability expired 8/15/2013]

House of Cards

Raw Faith

Hitler’s Children

Sing Your Song

The Hedgehog

Bramwell (Season Two) – 1996 (3.2). The British series about a young female doctor running a charitable medical clinic in 1890s London continues with the same central cast as the doctor encounters various social issues behind the medical conditions she treats. A new character is introduced, a young up and coming male doctor at the local hospital, with whom our heroine clashes; but then a mutual attraction draws them together, even as we join her father in wanting her to drop him. More developments occur in the lives and families of others at the clinic. Excellent acting and good scripts more than make up for second tier video quality.

House of Cards – 2013 (3.0). This Netflix original American version of the BBC series from the 1990s is an impressive production and quite well acted. The writing is sharp and the story arc stays on track, though in mid-season as the sex and drugs become more prevalent it gets a little precarious. The spurned and power driven House Majority Whip and his wife are ruthlessly focused on their usually mutual goals, which are not entirely clear at first but then become more apparent as the season progresses. Cynical about any actual policy or even ideology, the scripts focus on power plays, back stabbing, alliances and exploitation – all the things that make me keep watching Survivor. The symbiosis of politicians and journalists plays a significant role and having the key reporter be a female neophyte willing to use sex to get ahead, which at first seems a titillation, turns out to be more significant. This is good enough to justify watching in expectation of the inevitable collapse.

Raw Faith – 2010 (3.0). This documentary closely follows Marilyn Sewell, Minister of a Unitarian church in Portland, Oregon, as she openly and honestly shares through the movie her struggles with a retirement age transition in her life. She loves her work ministering to her congregation and they obviously love and are quite touched by her, but as she examines her unhappy childhood, failed marriage and lack of closeness to her two sons, she begins to realize what is missing in her life and what she wants to do next.

Lincoln – 2012 (2.9). Spielberg gives his Hollywood treatment to the man on the penny. From a Doris Kearns Goodwin book, the original script was of miniseries length, but Spielberg chose to concentrate on the last four months of Lincoln’s life, centering on the political maneuvering to get the 13^th Amendment passed to abolish slavery and the negotiating attempts to try to bring the Civil War to its inevitable conclusion. Daniel Day-Lewis does his expected super job as Abe and Sally Fields matches him as Mary, though her part in a story about politics and war negotiations is necessarily more peripheral. To those not schooled in the details of this phase of history, much of the political maneuvering may have been a bit confusing. The African-American characters in the script had no depth and were way too 21^st Century, especially the soldier from Massachusetts who challenged the President in the opening scene. Some of the Hollywood touches are falsely iconic, such as the scene near the end where Lincoln slowly rides his horse through a body strewn battlefield right by a pristine rebel flag still flying proudly in the breeze.

Hitler’s Children – 2011 (2.9). The descendants of members of Hitler’s inner circle have to figure out how to deal with the guilt and shame of carrying on such infamous names. This thought provoking documentary uses interviews with the descendants, some archival footage and film of their interactions with young German students, holocaust survivors and their descendants (which is quite moving) to show how they are handling the matter in various ways. While watching and thinking about the aftermath of what the Nazis in twelve years did to Jewish people, I could not help but think about what many of our American ancestors over almost two and a half centuries did to African people.

Sing Your Song – 2011 (2.9). Harry Belafonte has been a pioneer in race relations and an icon of the struggle for social justice for so many decades that we may have taken his involvement for granted or even forgotten most of it. This documentary is a good reminder, proceeding chronologically through the decades, using interviews with Harry and others who joined in the struggle, archival footage and narration. Some of his personal life is shown, including interviews with his second wife and his children, but the focus is primarily on the causes with which he has been involved.

The Hedgehog – 2009 (2.9).  Young French filmmaker Mona Achache shows promise in this gentle story of an artistic and intelligently introspective eleven year old girl who is bored with her life and family in their luxury apartment in Paris. She decides to commit suicide before her next birthday and uses her home movie camera and drawing talent to explore and address her feelings. The hedgehog is the grumpy and frumpy female superintendent of the apartment building, who is actually a highly literate and avid reader behind her closed door. The girl, the hedgehog and a new apartment resident, an elegant widowed Japanese man, are kindred spirits who begin to develop friendships, as the birthday of the girl draws near. Interesting camera techniques involving the home movie camera are effectively utilized as are close ups of the art work being drawn by the girl and animations of her drawings. There is something said in this movie, with a typical French closing, but it is the style of the telling that is most impressive.

Bramwell (Season Three) – 1997 (2.9). The disapproved pending marriage of the heroine was the cliffhanger ending of season two continues into season three but quickly takes a dramatic change which lingers through the season, perhaps a bit too much. The work of the clinic continues as before and the senior Doctor Bramwell finds a love interest of his own, culminating in his marriage and relocation, which impacts the operation of the clinic. Drama continues in the lives of the clinic staff and young Doctor Bramwell and her clinic colleague are drawn together as this season ends. The script quality tapers off a little this season as the love life issues become more melodramatic.

Rust and Bone – 2012 (2.7). He is a virile, brutish wanderer with a sometimes sensitive side, showing up on the doorstep of his sister with his five year old son after a three year absence. The woman he meets as a bouncer at a club has been roughed up and he takes her home and offers his phone number if she needs further help. She is happy in her work as an Orca trainer in marine shows, but unhappy in her personal life. After a few months, an accident at work leaves her even unhappier and she calls him. Their resulting relationship is atypical and confusing to her, though he does not give it much thought, until an accident also happens in his life. This is an interesting exploration, but falls a bit short because we never get to know much about the background of these two people in order to better understand who they are and to make us care more for them.

Bully – 2011 (2.7). The subject of bullying in schools deserves a better movie than this amateurish documentary which disjointedly follows parts of the stories of several victimized middle school students who live in small town locations from Iowa to Georgia. School authorities are mostly shown to be clueless about the problem while parents are understandably upset, particularly in the cases with the most egregious results. Noticeably absent are interviews with the bullies themselves or peer discussions of the topic. Finally near the end the film shows some parents taking action to arouse community attention to the problem, but otherwise there is no indication of what can and should be done by our communities and schools to address the subject.

Quartet – 2012 (2.4). Not a comedy or a drama, this poorly written script wastes a wonderful cast in a muddled and bare story of a retirement home for old singers and musicians, three of whom want to reunite in a singing quartet performance while the fourth does not. The movie gives no indication whatsoever that Dustin Hoffman has any particular talent as a film director. Billy Connolly provides a little comic relief. Maggie Smith being persuaded to deliver the “f” word for the first time was a shameful idea that fittingly fell flat.

Bramwell (Season Four) – 1998 (2.2). What happened here? Two long episodes comprise the fourth season, in which the senior Doctor Bramwell and his new wife are barely mentioned, other supporting cast members disappear without explanation, a new love interest for the heroine is plopped in, her clinic doctor colleague is painted in an inconsistently different light, the heroine turns into an hysterical twit and the whole disjointed mess ends with an implausibly lousy supposedly happy scene. There was a Season Five of at least one episode in 2000, which nobody seems to have cared about, which is quite understandable.

Better Luck with Documentaries

As the list of newer dramas is getting used up (there are about six more to come), I’m infilling with some documentaries streamed from Netflix. The documentaries have definitely been more worthwhile. Several foreign films in my Flix streaming queue probably deserve a view. The NationalFilm Registry, the subject of one of the documentaries listed below, also deserves to be gleaned for viewing possibilities.

Here is what I have watched since I posted my last list. The ratings I give are on my own number system which is explained at the link on the sidebar.

The movies on this list streamed via Netflix were:

56 Up

These Amazing Shadows

Park Avenue

A Royal Affair

Small Voices: The Story of Cambodia's Children

Metropolis

56 Up – 2012 (3.0). Another seven years have gone by and director Michael Apted again visits the people he has been filming every seven years since 1964, when they were seven year old school children coming from different backgrounds in Britain. Watching the development of these people and their families over now such a long period of time, getting together with them is like attending a reunion. Granted the interviews are edited and the people do not always agree with the editing process, but the result seems fair to the viewers. This series of documentaries has always presented each child in full in sequence, making it simple to know about whom we are talking; whereas so many other documentaries present their subject people in back and forth segments skipping between the various people, making it much harder to keep track of who is being talked about at any given time.

Searching for Sugar Man – 2012 (2.9). Rodriguez was a folk singer who wrote and performed meaningful songs and got a chance to record in the late sixties and early seventies, but for whatever reasons his albums bombed. But somehow in South Africa his recordings caught on and inspired numerous local musicians and he became perhaps the most beloved folksinger of his generation and the worshipped hero of younger ones. In this documentary, some South Africans realize nobody seems to know who Rodriguez really was and whatever happened to him, and whether any one of the various stories about his death are true, The resulting search for information is fairly well documented and leads to a worthwhile story, though it is not so much  biographical as it is philosophical. I would have preferred more of both.

These Amazing Shadows – 2011 (2.9).  Established by Congress in 1988, the National Film Registry, which is part of the Library of Congress, grows by 25 films a year. This well-paced documentary includes interview segments with film scholars, film makers and people involved in the selection of films for the Registry, interspersed with clips from diverse movies throughout the history of American cinema, all of which are now part of the Registry.

The Newsroon (Season One) – 2012 (2.8). This HBO series started strong in speaking to the important role journalism plays as the fourth branch of the American government, particularly in these times of political gridlock and partisan grandstanding. However it quickly became evident we would also be following the romantic entanglements of several of the characters and witnessing other hijinks of a lower level. The pressure to chase ratings rather than worthwhile news stories is an effective element and the tie in to breaking news stories of the recent past is effective. Learning about the news people on a personal level could be relevant, but too much time was spent on some fairly trivial dating and relationship problems.

Lost in La Mancha – 2002 (2.8). There is nothing special about the style or technique of this documentary, but the subject matter lifts its appeal to a movie buff. You just don’t see many stories about movies not getting made. Terry Gilliam, the writer of Monty Python fame, had a ten year vision of the Don Quixote movie he wanted to make and eventually was able to raise the considerable funding from individual investors in Europe. He cast his perfect European actor to play the lead and secured Johnny Depp also, but once filming began in Spain, it was clear that this production would be a fiasco. The importance of pre-production planning and coordination to the successful completion of a film is amply demonstrated by this failure and the usually obscure role of investors, insurers and guarantors is brought forward. Writing talent does not necessarily constitute movie making talent.

Herman’s House – 2012 (2.7). Shown on Point of View on PBS, this documentary tells of a young woman artist in NYC who hears of a man in prison in Louisiana who has been in solitary confinement for almost 40 years. She decides to write to the man and the result is a developing friendship leading to a project from which the artist recreates the tiny prison cell in wood and displays it in art galleries. She then asks the prisoner to imagine his dream house, which he eventually does, and they decide to try to actually build it. Shown from the point of view of the artist, with recordings of her phone conversations with the prisoner, the movie is a very personal journey with her, and a corollary one with the prisoner, but it fails to provide much actual information or commentary about the legal efforts being made on his behalf.

Park Avenue: Money, Power and the American Dream – 2012 (2.7). Concentrating attention on the mega rich occupants of the richest residential building in NYC, this documentary spends most of its time covering how the super-rich have used their money to build political power to achieve their agenda of significantly reducing the amount of taxes they pay while demonizing those of lower income as lazy leeches. Less time is spent showing the contrasting life of the impoverished people on Park Avenue in the Bronx. The progressive slant of the movie is obvious, but it does not suggest any way to counter what these powerful people have done.

A Royal Affair – 2012 (2.7). Based on true events surrounding the Danish royal court near the end of the 18^th century, this Danish drama spends considerable time following personal interactions between the mentally ill King, his young English Queen, the enlightened German personal physician to the King, and various other players in the power games at court, but we never get the feeling we have made a personal connection with any of them. As the influence of the doctor on the King grows and he gains political power which he uses to get enlightenment type laws passed, he also enters into an affair with the Queen which can only come to a bad end. Some back story on the principals could have made them more deeply understandable, as could spending more of the interacting time on expressions of personal aspirations beyond sex and power. A letter from the Queen to her two children to tell them the story is the framework for the film, yet we never see any meaningful interaction between her and them in the course of the film. This is an interesting story and a fairly watchable film, but it should have been much better.

Small Voices: The Story of Cambodia's Children – 2008 (2.7). This earnest documentary about extremely poor children who pick garbage and beg for a living features several very appealing youngsters who genuinely desire to go to school and are fortunate enough to be accepted into a private school run by a Scottish-Australian film executive turned philanthropist. The movie concentrates on interviews with the children and they are shown at their work and with whatever family they have. What is missing from the film is personal interviews with the school founder and his staff and any helpful explanation of the attitude of the Cambodian government and the apparent absence of UN agencies or other international relief organizations.

Les Miserables – 2012 (2.4). The French classic tale has been filmed numerous times. This version is based on the musical theatrical version from the 1980s. The sets and direction are not stage bound, but the singing is of mixed quality and most disappointing is the overwhelming number of forgettable songs crammed into a very long movie. The Wikipedia article on the musical lists fifty songs performed during the show, only two of which are significant enough to have their own Wikipedia article. For a quicker and more moving musical experience, watch the You Tube video of Susan Boyle’s performance of I Dreamed A Dream at the 2009 Britain’s Got Talent show; it has been viewed over 128 million times. Jean Valjean would have loved it.

Robot & Frank – 2012 (2.4). Supposedly a comedy, this awkwardly paced movie is not funny, has no drama or story of much interest and has no characters worth caring about except possibly the robot, who knows he is not human yet exhibits more humane characteristics than anyone else. The Robot should get a TV series in which he is hired to work in the households of different guest stars every week.

Metropolis (Restored version) – 1927 (2.4). This classic German sci-fi was a wonder in its time, but the acting is as stylized as the futuristic sets and the story of a young rich playboy being attracted to a female evangelist to the oppressed workers and then joining in a revolt against his powerful capitalist father fails to arouse emotion today when wrapped in such antiquated stylization. The restored version includes some footage thought lost forever, but only makes an already lengthy film even longer.

The Words – 2003 (2.3). Purposely convoluted scripts run the risk of confusing the audience to the point where they tune out, which is what happened with this drama about plagiarism. An unsuccessful young novelist finding an old briefcase in which there is an aged manuscript of a wonderfully written story and then getting it published under his own name is an interesting premise. Having the actual writer turn up in his senior years as a failed writer adds an element. But then piling on some other writer who is telling us the story and interweaving flashbacks of the story of the old man with seemingly irrelevant scenes involving the man telling us the story, all paced inconsistently and with characters popping up and disappearing, just doesn’t gel.