Spring Transition

Well into spring, the PBS shows wind down their seasons providing more time the glean Netflix and to resurrect check outs from the library. This is probably a good time to go over all my waiting lists and build up queues for summer watching.

Call the Midwife (Season Five) – 2016 (3.2). The series enters 1961 and encounters the impact of new drugs on pregnancy, from Thalidomide to birth control pills. Changing times and evolving characters are nicely interwoven and portrayed with typically high British TV standards. By now we have become emotionally involved in our relationship with all the cast, but usually with personal favorites. A sixth season is on its way and if the series stays true to itself there is no reason it cannot go on for many more.

The Galapagos Affair:Satan Came to Eden – 2013 (3.0). In 1929 a German couple left their respective spouses and settled on a small Galapagos Island. Over the next few years a few others followed. Typical of such back to nature adventures, paradise did not ensue. This pleasantly engaging documentary uses a surprising amount of archival footage from the settlers, along with dramatic readings from their writings and interviews with living descendants and a few historians of the history of humans on those islands. The resulting story is told in a well edited chronology with conflicting points of view on what were thee relations between the various inhabitants and what ultimately happened to them.

Tangerines -2013 (3.0). A grandfatherly Estonian living in a Russian Georgia village of tangerine orchards is caught in the crossfire of the early 1990s civil war and takes in two wounded combatants hostile to each other, A Georgian and a Chechnya mercenary. His even handed treatment of the men gains their respect and provides pause for reflection on territorial disputes and the resulting wars. A neighbor with a tangerine crop in need of harvest pickers rounds out the small cast. Good acting, particularly by the grandfather, evocative cinematography and economical writing and direction led the movie to nominations for best foreign film at both the Golden Globes and the Oscars.

Journey of Hope – 1990 (3.0). This German Oscar winning drama about a poor Turkish farmer and his wife paying traffickers to get them to Switzerland in the hopes of earning money to bring back home will probably always be a timely subject. The actors appear to be real people and the filming of their journey has a documentary feel of authenticity. Three kinds of people are encountered on the journey: good ones who try sympathetically to help; bad ones who seek to cheat; and the authorities who try to humanely apply the immigration laws. American viewers may be inclined to feel the journey is too risky, but if our ancestors had not ventured out, we would not be Americans.

The Return – 2016 (2.9). In 1994 California passed a "Three Strikes" law mandating life imprisonment terms. By 2012 such laws were acknowledged to be overkill in many cases and voters then passed by 70% a measure to allow such sentences to be reviewed by judges to determine if the prisoner should be released as posing no threat to public safety. This sensitive documentary follows two released men as they cope with making the adjustment to life after prison. The technique used is quiet observation of the men, their families and the attorneys and other volunteers who work with them. Periodic titles provide information on the status at various points in the months the men were observed. There is no preaching or expert commentary, other than what is said by the attorneys in the course of their work.

Brothers In War – 2014 (2.9). In 1967 the last company of drafted American combat soldiers who had trained together was sent to Vietnam for one year. After that, units in Vietnam were supplemented with individual replacements as casualties were incurred. Surviving members of the original company, including the commander and some unit leaders, were interviewed for this documentary. Some home movies and a few audio tapes were also incorporated. The chronicling of the one year tour using memories of the men and footage from the time and place begin to give a feeling of the fear and resilience of these men who survived patrols in the Mekong Delta in which 26 of the original men were killed and over 100 were wounded.

Mr. Selfridge (SeasonFour) – 2016 (2.8). The series concludes at the time of the 20^th anniversary of the store, and this final season emphasizes how Harry's gambling and womanizing bring him down, ultimately being broke and squeezed out of the store he founded. It all feels a bit rushed, as if the writers knew the plots needed to build and conclude swiftly. Some of the supporting characters have more nuanced dramas in their lives but Harry and his made up love interest Mae are the main presentation. Viewers probably feel like the Board of Directors – it was time for Harry to go.

My Nazi Legacy – 2015 (2.8). Two men born in 1939 whose fathers were Nazi commanders in occupied Poland in WWII have a different view on the culpability of their father in this documentary. One has bad memories of his early childhood and agrees his father deserved the execution he received at Nuremburg. The other has good childhood memories and cannot be convinced to believe his father, who died a refugee in the Vatican where he fled to avoid prosecution, was in any way to blame for the atrocities committed under his command. A Jewish international activist attorney whose family was almost entirely annihilated under the command of the two fathers joins with the man who accepts the truth of the villainy of his father in trying to convince the other son. But the effort fails and the truth accepter concludes the truth denier is in fact a modern day Nazi. He frustrated attorney is not quite sure of that.

Winter on Fire – 2015 (2.8). When Ukrainians elected a leader who told them he was going to take the country into the EU, the people were delighted. But when he reneged and acted like a Russian puppet, they took to the streets, especially the young people. The protests were met with violent response by the government and when young people were injured the elders and ecumenical church leaders joined them in support. The violence continued until finally the leader fled into exile in Russia. This story is told in a documentary using interviews with protestors and lots of footage shot during the months of protest. There is no historical analysis or expert opinion, just film of what happened on the ground combined with protestor viewpoints.

You've Been Trumped – 2011 (2.7). Watching this documentary about the scoundrel Donald Trump scamming the Scottish powers into letting him ruin a wondrous sand dune treasure to build a golf course for the rich and then bullying local Scot farmers in an attempt to get their homes removed as eyesores is like seeing a preview of his disgusting 2016 US Presidential run. The journalist who made the film lives only 40 miles from the dunes and he could not believe the favorable press Trump was receiving so he went to see for himself and tells the story from the point of view of the little people Trump scornfully wants to trample. The movie does not have extra content that would have made it better, because potential sources of financing for the cost of including such material were afraid of being sued by Trump. Funds were raised by the filmmaker mortgaging his own home.

Los Angeles Plays Itself – 2003 (2.7). This documentary is essentially a three hour lecture class about how Los Angeles has been used in numerous movies. The narration includes comments on movie making in general but most of the attention is put on specific locations in the city that have been part of many movies through the years. The editor has compiled great clips to illustrate the somewhat professorial narration, all of which would certainly be of much greater interest to a Los Angelino.

Time Out – 2001 (2.7). A Frenchman fired from his job wanders around trying to look and act like the executive he imagines himself to be, but keeps his unemployment a secret. Soon he starts bilking family and friends to raise money which leads him down a dangerous path. This French movie is slow and overlong, though well-acted and with some saving cinematography.

The Man Whose Mind Exploded – 2012 (2.4). Watched at Netflix on a bored whim, this documentary was poorly made and was about an eccentric and unappealing man, so it ended up being excluded by oversight from the previous blog list. My two stars rating at Netflix with a benefit of the doubt produces a 2.4 here. Don't bother watching it.

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

The Galapagos Affair: Satan Came to Eden

Journey of Hope

Band of Brothers

Winter on Fire

Los Angeles Plays Itself

Time Out

The Man Whose Mind Exploded

No Mockingbird

There is something I should have learned better before now. My first chance was over fifty years ago when I took a literature class from a professor who had written a book entitled Novels into Film. Most recently the same lesson was taught in comments on this blog (back when there were some) by John from Phoenix. Now I finally get the lesson and I want to explain why.

My reading through the years has been overwhelmingly non-fiction with only very few novels. On the death of Harper Lee, I decided to finally read To Kill a Mockingbird. At the same time I read a book (Scout, Atticus and Boo) with memories by various people about when they first read Mockingbird. I was in law school when the movie came out and I thought it was great; I particularly admired Atticus of course. The screen play won the Oscar for best adaptation. So after reading these books I watched the movie again, the first time I can recall since my first viewing. I was shocked how totally disappointingly different the movie was from the book.

I know I have seen at least a couple movies based on books I had read previously, but I do not remember being bothered by differences on the screen from the pages of the book. But in the case of Mockingbird I disliked the movie adaptation so much because it oversimplified the book and left so much of importance totally out of the script that I am not even including it in this list. I will let my ancient five star rating stay in place as a respectful memory, but I have now finally learned that a novel and a movie based on a novel are two separate and wholly autonomous works of art.

Downton Abbey (SeasonSix) – 2015 (3.2). Enjoyable house guests sometimes engender mixed feeling after they leave; while we will really miss them, we are also glad they are gone. So with the final season of Downton, it is time to part company with the people who have been visiting us and we wish them well. The scripts were written to grant our wish and they did so, with everyone taking a positive step forward in life, even as we are realistic enough to know they cannot all live happily ever after. Perhaps a sequel will be made in ten or twenty years.

Matt Shepard Is aFriend of Mine – 2014 (3.2). Matt wanted to be famous, but not by dying at a young age as a victim of a homophobic beating. Using archival home movies, evocative scenes of the filmmaker traveling around the area where Matt lived, and extensive interviews with his family and friends and those involved in investigating his murder, one friend made this documentary to let us learn who Matt was and why so many people loved him. There is not much issue preaching here, but there is the encouraging example set by the parents of Matt in starting a foundation to address the need for greater respect for individual differences. There is also a provocatively thoughtful conversation between the filmmaker and a priest who ministered to the murderers.

Call the Midwife(Season Four) – 2015 (3.1). As time moves forward, some of the cast turns over though some of the old stay on, and the medical and social issues keep evolving. A few story lines keep progressing even as new angles develop in the lives of some characters. There is a valid feel to the way things move along, but it does seem a little peculiar that the narrator from old age continues her voice over role even though her character is no longer appearing in the series. There are still many calendar years for the stories to run forward and as long as the quality holds up there is good reason to continue filming.

Jackie Robinson – 2016 (2.9). With this documentary Ken Burns attempts to fill in more of the personal side of the baseball great and his attitude toward racial relations in America from his young days through his integration of major league baseball and into his political activity after leaving baseball. The task is fairly well accomplished with lots of archival footage, interviews and dramatic voiceovers.

Doc Martin (SeasonSeven) – 2015 (2.9). Louisa returns from Spain and she and Martin begin couples therapy. We know about the problems Martin has, but bow we get to find out whether Louisa has problems of which we have been unaware. Meanwhile the characters and events in the town continue to provide drama around the central couple. Unfortunately, after setting the counselling up to be not only quite helpful to the couple but also to provide a deeper personal emotional drama for the series, this story line sort of fizzles in the last episode.

PlantPure Nation – 2015 (2.9). The son of one of the doctors whose life work on the health benefits of plant based eating was featured in the film Knives Over Forks is the maker of this newer documentary. Kentucky is the state with the least healthy population and this movie follows the efforts of the film maker to get the Kentucky legislature to approve a modest study of  plant based eating. Surprised by the defeat of the proposal, a self-funded study is done in North Carolina with impressive results and the Kentucky Legislature approached again. The truth of the value of this way of eating seems quite obvious but efforts to get government involved in promoting it run into vested animal based food interests and their control of the political process.

An Honest Liar – 2014 (2.9). For decades professional magician James Randi has made it his mission to discredit people who use the tricks of his trade to fool people into believing the tricksters have psychic, spiritual or other mystic powers. Lots of archival footage is combined with interviews, especially of Randi himself, to produce this documentary. Sadly, we learn there are willingly gullible people who use the charlatans as an emotional crutch and are angered when the fraud is exposed.

Supermensch: TheLegend of Shep Gordon – 2013 (2.9). Comedian Mike Meyers directed this documentary homage to a show biz agent who seems universally admired not only by his famous clients but also by no less than the Dalai Lama. Numerous interviews and clever reconstructed videos are well edited together with the precise timing of an experienced stand up comic. The result is a fun movie that moves right along.

Welcome to Leith – 2015 (2.8). A peripatetic white supremacist provocateur bought a rundown house in a very small town in North Dakota with the intention of attracting others of his ilk and taking over the town politically, though only one other couple actually came. These invaders were so obnoxious that the townspeople rose in opposition and ultimately persuaded the prosecutor to file charges against the men for terrorizing the townspeople. This documentary uses interviews with the townspeople, invaders and the prosecutor and a spokesperson for the Southern Poverty Law Center along with some archival footage of events that happened in the town to follow the case in a very personal way, without going into an academic analysis or criticism of the white supremacist views.

The Look of Silence – 2014 (2.8). In this sequel to an earlier documentary, The Act of Killing, the film maker follows the efforts of the brother of one of the victims of the Indonesian political genocide of the 1960s to confront the aging murderers and see if they have remorse or feelings of guilt. The brother was born after the killing as a replacement for son who was killed. The mother still lives and is kept informed as the son pursues his mission. The audacious sadism of the killers shown in the earlier film is fodder for the new journey and the people he confronts are still despicable and unremorseful. New to this film are the children of the murderers who profess varying degrees of ignorance about what happened, understandable because the murderers have been in charge of the Indonesian government since the slaughter and have tried to bury the past in silence.

How to Survive aPlague – 2012 (2.8). Archival footage and current interviews are used in this documentary to tell the story of the Act Up protestors whose persistent activism over many years finally got enough serious attention from the government and the pharma industry on the need for effective treatment AIDS victims. The film is more of a testament to the work of the individuals involved than a political history of how and why they had to work so long and so hard to get our country to properly address the problem.

Forks Over Knives – 2011 (2.8). Decades of lab research and working with patients have convinced two American doctors that a plant based diet is optimal for health. They present their findings in this documentary which also includes input from other doctors and patients who swear by the wonderful health gains of excluding animal products from what we eat. The presentation is easy to follow, though one is left with many questions about specifics, which means visiting the website and reading the book are the next steps for consideration.

Reel Injun – 2009 (2.8). A documentary film maker from the far north of Canada takes a road trip in a "res car" to visit Hollywood, the creator of American Indian mythology. Along the way he visits some historic Indian sites and talks with various Indians including some famous actors and activists. Archival footage of Indians being played by whites and cast as stereotypes provide humor tinged with resentment. But there is some good news in the more recent movies, some made by Indians, showing indigenous people in a more accurate light.

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

Matt Shepard Is a Friend of Mine

Call the Midwife (Season Four)

PlantPure Nation

Supermensch: The Legend of Shep Gordon

The Look of Silence

How to Survive a Plague

Forks Over Knives

Reel Injun

Winter Watching

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 20^th 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

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