Two Thirds from Netflix

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

  

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

 

Closure

Mile…Mile & a Half

The Impostor

Breath of Freedom

On the Way to School

Beware of Mr. Baker

25 to Life

Living on One Dollar

To Be Takei

Of Human Bondage

30 for 30: Broke

Still More from Netflix

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Resurrecting Netflix

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

A Short List

The two month gap between list postings here is due to watching full seasons of the top three shows and scraping around on Netflix without much luck. Boyhood is the only mainstream theater movie in this pack. Sometimes we go through periods of disinclination to watch.

 

The Newsroom (Season Three) – 2014 (3.3). The biggest stories covered by the TV journalists in this final year of the drama are the Boston Marathon bombing and a version of the Snowden NSA whistle blowing. As the ratings start to slip, new financial pressures are brought to bear which threaten journalistic integrity. Strains in the love lives of the journalists all stem from their careers. How to survive in a changing world of journalism and quasi- journalism is the overarching question and the series creators felt so good about how they covered it this third year that they decided to call it quits with an emotionally valid episode of the passing of the torch. The decision deserves praise, because not every series knows when it is time to call it a wrap.

 

Downton Abbey (Season Five) - 2014 (3.2). Though the essentials are firmly in place, the story lines around the cultural changes taking place in the 1920s are compromised by two overdone subplots of no real bearing on the societal issues of the time. The most egregious is the yearlong pursuit of a criminal matter possibly involving the valet Bates and his wife the maid Anna. The other involves the Maggie Smith character suddenly being confronted with an ill-fated romance from long ago. There are many legitimate character transformations taking place and some new romantic prospects appear in the season finale, but it is beginning to feel like the time has come to wrap things up, which reportedly what Julian Fellowes the series creator may have decided. It will be sad to see the series end, perhaps after next season, but hopefully our cousins across the pond will keep coming up with new quality shows.

 

Game of Thrones (Season Four) – 2014 (2.9). It still remains hard to keep track of the full cast of characters and various geographic locations, and this season adds more of both. As we continue to spend time with the central characters, we see changes in some and nuances in others, but there are also those who just stay the same. This season feels more disjointed and the last two episodes are a bit of a letdown, especially the next to last which is essentially just a one hour battle. The special effects are exceptionally well done, but the development of the plot lines and characters sometimes seems to suffer as a consequence. The surreal fantasy elements also can sometimes distract from otherwise engaging realism. Granted the series is based on an ongoing series of fantasy novels, but the TV series has already departed from the books and one has to wonder if there is a plan to bring the TV series to a conclusion even if the books continue.

 

Little White Lie - 2014 (2.9). The young woman who made this autobiographical documentary says a family secret is something everyone knows but nobody talks about. Growing up with her Jewish parents in the racially homogenous community of Woodstock, New York, her darker skin and coarser hair were attributed to a Sicilian ancestor. But when she started high school in a nearby town a more racially mixed student body challenged her to ask deeper questions. The movie uses self-reflections, old home movies, and interviews with her parents, friends and family to tell the story of how she learned a very personal family secret. Somehow two very flawed people raised a daughter who is better than they deserved.

 

They Call It Myanmar – 2012 (2.8). As the country formerly known as Burma started a move to open up from the repressive military junta of half a century, an American film maker was able to travel around the land and intermingle with its ethnically diverse population. The travelogue is narrated by the film maker and includes interviews with Burmese commentators including Aung San Suu Kyi and some historical footage. Cautious optimism is expressed for these warm Buddhist people who suffer from great poverty and lack of social services. The young children forced to work to support themselves and their families are unable to attend school because of the cost and as the film maker interviews them through an interpreter, our hearts are touched.

 

Thunder Soul - 2010 (2.8). In the 1970s the Kashmere High School Stage Band of Houston Texas brought a superbly performed funk sound to band competitions and became a winning sensation showcasing black pride in the early years of the new civil rights era. The all black band was the brainchild of a fantastic teacher, Conrad "Prof" Johnson, who not only wrote many of the numbers the band performed and taught them the proper technique and showmanship, but also taught them self-confidence, discipline and other virtues to carry through life. Thirty five years later many of the former students return to the school to perform a reunion concert in honor of their now aged mentor. This documentary shows the love and respect the students hold for Prof and captures the philosophy of the teacher using archival footage and extensive interviews. It would have been nice to have more biographical information on Prof and to learn more about the lives the students have led since graduating.

 

Boyhood – 2014 (2.6). It is an interesting concept to use the same young actor over a period of years to make a drama movie about a boy coming of age through a succession of step households. Throw in your daughter as his sister and a couple more faithful actors as the biological parents to complete the subject family. Unfortunately the resulting film is not as interesting as it should have been because it was made by Richard Linklater who likes to use what he thinks is natural sounding banal dialogue with some occasional words of interest. Fast forwarding through the several musical numbers helps shorten the viewing time from almost three hours. An actual documentary about the real young man probably would have been more worthwhile.

 

The Search forMichael Rockefeller – 2011 (2.5). In 1961 Michael Rockefeller the son of the NY Governor, disappeared while doing anthropological work in New Guinea and he was never found. Did he drown at sea as most believe, or was he eaten by cannibals as some speculated is the question raised in this documentary which consists mostly of footage shot eight years later by an investigative reporter who never made it public. This movie shows the non-release of the footage was no great loss to the story and that there is little reason to continue the dated speculation.

 

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

 

They Call It Myanmar

Thunder Soul

The Search for Michael Rockefeller

A Dozen Docs from Flix

 

 

 

Taking a month away from cable TV made more time for Netflix streaming. Since my existing queue was uninspiring an open minded browsing for documentaries produced some interesting and diverse prospects. Here are twelve of them. 

The Dark Matter of Love – 2012 (3.1). With a teenage daughter and several subsequent miscarriages, a Wisconsin couple tries to fulfill their dream of having four children by adopting three more from Russia, a girl age 11 and twin boys age 5. Two psychologists are engaged to assist and advise in this very challenging endeavor and the progress is documented over the first couple years in this film. Historical documentary footage about psychological tests involving emotional detachment is incorporated and often corrected by the two psychologists helping the family. The educational components of the movie are interesting but the real impact is seeing what a tough challenge this was for the three Americans and the three Russians to get to know, trust and love each other as a family.

 

The Loving Story -2011 (3.1). The case that led to the 1967 US Supreme Court decision overturning state laws barring interracial marriage is well known, but the actual married couple named in the challenge is not. The ACLU did not seek out a highly educated interracial couple in Virginia to use as a test case; instead Richard Loving and Mildred Jeter from a small rural county in that state wrote to US Attorney General Robert Kennedy who referred them to the ACLU. Richard, a white man, was a quiet brick mason who made friends with people regardless of race and Mildred was an endearing young woman of mixed Indian and Negro race. After being married in Washington DC, the couple returned home to Virginia where the local Sheriff broke into their home in the middle of the night and arrested them for living as a married interracial couple. They were prosecuted, convicted and sentenced to prison, with suspension given if they moved out of state. This documentary effectively blends footage from the time of the litigation with interviews from many years later with the daughter of the couple, their two attorneys and others who were involved.

 

Gore Vidal: The United States of Amnesia – 2013 (2.9). Gore Vidal was a prolific American author and public intellectual holding stage for over 50 years. His criticisms of the United States for its cultural deficiencies and for its imperialistic foreign policy are well presented in this documentary, using archival footage, interviews with friends and family and extended on screen conversation with the man himself. We get a little of his background, more of his philosophy and a lot of his very accurate analysis of American mistakes.

 Charles Bradley: Soul of America – 2012 (2.9). At 62, a black man in NYC made the Rolling Stone top 50 with his first album of soul songs. He had been performing is small local clubs as a James Brown impersonator, but had lots of soul of his own based on the hard life he has led as shown in this documentary. Brief dramatic reconstructions infill the interviews with family members and the people involved in putting out his album. But the man himself, followed extensively in his rehearsals, performances and his daily activities is literally the soul of the movie. He creates very personal songs based on his feelings and delivers them with strong passion and love. In fact, Charles Bradley may be one of the most loving men we will ever meet.

 

Codebreaker – 2014 (2.9). Alan Turing was a brilliant English mathematician and genius original thinker who was the person primarily responsible for breaking the Nazi code in WWII and who was a pioneer in conceptualizing digital computing. He was also a homosexual and a very honest man, a combination which led to his criminal prosecution and resultant downfall, all of which is covered for this documentary by use of dramatic reconstruction and interviews with experts and people who knew him. Originally broadcast in the UK in 2011, Netflix seems to have a somewhat expanded version dated a few years later.

 

Two: The Story of Roman & Nyro – 2013 (2.8). Gay dads use a friend as a surrogate mother so they can have a child and end up with the twins named in the documentary title. But the movie is more about the dads than the kids, using old family movies of the time the men were growing up to explain their background and home movie footage of their years together to show their strong bond. Interviews with the dads, kids, surrogate and various relatives are combined with professional documentary footage to produce a celebratory film showing yet another version of a happy family.

 

Gotta Dance – 2008 (2.8). Senior citizens turn out for open auditions for an oldsters dance group to perform and cheer at a few New Jersey Nets basketball games and a dozen or so are chosen, including some who never expected it. This fun documentary quickly gets through the auditions and then follows the dancers as they learn they will be dancing to hip hop. Rehearsals are shown and there are interviews with several of the dancers and scenes of their intermingling and getting to know each other, and finally we get to see them perform at some games, including a performance with a troupe of kids.

 

The Improv: 50 Years Behind the Brick Wall – 2013 (2.7). Put a camera in a room and interview several comedians about their memories of working in the early years of the celebrated comedy club, throw is some archival footage of performers, add a dash of interview with the club founder and you have a one hour documentary. It is not rocket science, but there are some laughs.

 Jiro Dreams of Sushi – 2011 (2.7). Octogenarian Jiro is the acknowledged king of the Tokyo Sushi chefs, having dedicated has life to his culinary career since he was cast out on his own at age 9. Documented in this movie is his passionate devotion to his work, but what seems to be missing is more about the man himself. However, there may not be much more to him than what the film shows, a man whose entire life has been his dedication to being the best at what he does for a living.

 

Andrew Jenks, Room 335 – 2006 (2.7). A 19 year old filmmaker arranges a stay in an assisted living home in Florida to learn some wisdom from the senior residents. The resulting documentary at first is funny as the young fish out of water finds some residents who are humorous wisecrackers. But as the young man begins to bond with some of the residents in particular, he quickly learns the seriousness of their states of health as several are taken to the hospital and one undergoes a particularly wrenching ordeal. He is exposed to the philosophical pronouncements of the elderly residents and feels the care and attachment they can develop for each other and the pain of loss.

 I Ain't in It for MyHealth: A Film about Levon Helm – 2010 (2.6). Levon Helm was the drummer and a singer in The Band, the group that backed Bob Dylan for a time and performed at Woodstock. Filmed a couple years before his death, this documentary uses archival footage and current interviews with fellow musicians and family members, but mostly it follows Helm as he visits his doctor and hangs around his home and puts together a tour to raise money to save his home from creditors. For all the time we see Helm Talking, what is missing from the film is an actual explanation of what he did in all the years after The Band broke up and any depth of exploration of his complaint that he was cheated out of credit and royalties for the songs he claims he helped write.

 

Paul Williams: Still Alive – 2011 (2.5). In the 1970s a diminutive singer became quickly famous performing his own songs and appearing on practically every TV show being broadcast. His songs about loneliness resonated with lots of people including the maker of this documentary who had assumed Paul Williams was probably dead since he had not been heard of for so long. But in fact Paul had survived a drug and alcohol downfall and was still performing for fans with long memories. This movie was an attempt to find out more about what had happened to Paul in his life journey and how he felt about it. The expected archival footage is included but the movie primarily follows Paul and interviews him on his travels to perform. Unfortunately, Paul is a very reluctant interviewee, which makes for an awkward film.

 

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

The Dark Matter of Love
The Loving Story

Charles Bradley: Soul of America

Gore Vidal: The United States of Amnesia

Codebreaker

Two: The Story of Roman & Nyro

Gotta Dance

The Improv: 50 Years Behind the Brick Wall

Jiro Dreams of Sushi

Andrew Jenks, Room 335

I Ain't in It for My Health: A Film about Levon Helm

Paul Williams: Still Alive



 

Farewell Parenthood

Eric Deggans wrote a thoughtful piece for NPR about the end of the Parenthood TV series. This type of realistic family drama is unfortunately becoming rarer these days, though Downton Abbey does present a historical British version.

 

Parenthood (SeasonFive) – 2013 (3.2). This next to last season includes 22 episodes moving the multiple story lines along in touching and believable courses that feel properly paced. We begin to sense that the family members, in spite of the three generations of age spread, are coming to times of their lives where turmoil is beginning to lead to clarification of what is important. The next season will be a final shorter season because of disagreements between the cast and NBC. Hopefully the writers will carefully bring the stories to points where viewers can be comfortable bidding farewell, wishing everyone well and still wondering how things will actually turn out after we part company.

 

Belle – 2013 (3.1). Based on a true story, this per Revolutionary War Brit drama follows the daughter of a slave woman and an English aristocrat soldier from the time she joins the family of her father in second class status, through the death of her father and her blossoming into an impressive young woman with an independent mind. As she and her beloved cousin reach marriageable age, they encounter the social pressures about which Jane Austen so notably wrote.  During this time, the patriarch of the family who is the Lord Chief Justice of England must decide a famous case about sick slaves being sent to market in America being jettisoned overboard supposedly for humanitarian reasons, but more probably in order to claim insurance benefits for their loss as cargo.

 

An Unreal Dream: The Michael Morton Story – 2013 (3.1). One might wonder how yet another story about a wrongfully convicted man finally obtaining release could be told in a new way, but this documentary is up to the challenge. Quietly told mostly by the man himself, the movie includes a reasonable dose of the requisite legal issues, but what makes the film distinctive is the concentration on the personal transition of the man himself, which he talks about and which is also discussed by fellow inmates, members of his legal team and a few others, most importantly his son who was only three years old when his father was sent to life imprisonment for the murder of his wife, the boy's mother.

 

Parenthood (Season Six) – 2014 (3.0). The shortened final season brings all the characters to decisions leading to new hopeful beginnings and we are given some quick previews of what may be in store for them on their continuing journeys. If the audience for the series had been larger, there was dramatic potential to follow these people for a few more seasons, though there would be no clear time for it to end. Dramas set in historical eras can end with a particular calendar year or historical event. Those centered on one main character can end with a significant life or death event of that character. But ensemble dramas set in contemporary times do not have such natural ending points.

 

Alive Inside – 2014 (2.9). Old people with Alzheimer's and dementia can be depressingly trapped in isolation, both literally and figuratively. This documentary follows a man with a promising idea for bringing out the still alive interior of these people. He gives them I-Pods with their favorite tunes from the past and they light up and become vibrantly happy. Doctors, scientists and musicians are interviewed about why this works and loving family members and nursing home workers are shown interfacing with the afflicted. An African musician is shown using music to heal Congolese women victims of abuse as well as Americans in nursing homes.

 

Return to the Wild:The Chris McCandless Story – 2014 (2.8).In 2007 Sean Penn released a documentary based on book telling a true story about a young man from an affluent family who traveled around alone after college, discarded all trappings of his wealth, severed connections with his family and wandered off into the wilderness of Alaska where he became stranded and starved to death. He became sort of a cult hero to young people and his sister decided it was time to revisit his story and set the record straight. The result is this new documentary telling the biography of the young man through interviews with his sister, his parents and his two half-sisters. What emerges is a sorrowful tale of an abusive bigamist father and a mother in denial, and three young women who survived what inadvertently killed their brother.

 

The Kill Team – 2013 (2.8). A young American soldier in Afghanistan finds that his platoon sergeant is involving some platoon members in murder of innocent Afghan civilians. He knows it is wrong but when his qualms are detected he is threatened with death if he tells. Through Facebook chat he explains his situation to his father who tries to help from the US by contacting military related authorities, but becomes concerned that if he stirs things up too much, his son will pay the price with his life. The soldier, his parents, some platoon members and a few others are shown in this documentary as the situation eventually plays itself out back in the US. The movie is yet another piece of evidence questioning US military forays into foreign countries to "win the hearts and minds" of the local people.

 

Like Stars on Earth – 2007 (2.8). Learning differences can be difficult for some parents and schools to recognize and the consequences of failing to do so can be devastating to a child whose brain works in a different way. This overly long drama from India stars an eight year old boy who cannot read or write or do math and who tries to disguise his difficulty in learning by acting out in delinquent ways. The young actor plays the role quite well and the heartfelt spirit of the movie and happy ending are probably reasons why Disney aided US distribution. Edited to a more reasonable length it could have been a good film to show US third graders both for the message of the film and for the experience of watching a subtitled movie [though the DVD seems to offer the option of dubbing in English].

 

Dear Mom, Love Cher – 2013 (2.7). On the 85^th birthday of her mother, Cher conducted an interview which was then expanded into this one hour TV documentary giving some biographical information on Mom and her six marriages and current long term arrangement. There are lots of holes in the story and at first Mom seems easy to dismiss, but over the hour she becomes more endearing.

 

The Missing Picture – 2013 (2.7). In this Oscar nominee for best foreign film, a Cambodian filmmaker uses archival footage and clay figures placed into panoramas to portray his experience as a boy during the terror of the Khmer Rouge in the late 1970s. His narration is written in an almost poetic style, but his low key delivery and unfamiliar accent make it seem more mundane than it had to actually have been.

 

Xmas without China – 2013 (2.5). An intriguing premise, an American family trying to go without using any products made in China, gets lost in this short documentary which also blends in the young Chinese born film maker struggling with the pull of his motherland and the allure of the United States, his home since he was eight. Add to the mix the Chinese parents, now American citizens, trying to understand how Christmas is the top holiday in America, and the movie never seems to have clear direction.

 

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

Parenthood (Season Five)

An Unreal Dream: The Michael Morton Story

Alive Inside

The Missing Picture

My Best Watches of 2014

As usual, I am a year or two behind in watching new movies. But several of the best ones I watched in 2014 were fairly new. Here are the ones I rated best:

Bridegroom	2013	3.5
Downton Abbey (Season Three)	2013	3.5
Inequality for All	2013	3.5
Past, The	2013	3.5
Omar	2013	3.4
Island at War	2004	3.3
Mr. Selfridge (Season Two)	2014	3.3
Parenthood (Season Three)	2012	3.3
Parenthood (Season Two)	2011	3.3
Roosevelts: An Intimate History, The	2014	3.3

 

I finally saw most Oscar nominees from last time around. My highest rated were Omar [above], and another foreign film The Broken Circle Breakdown (3.1). Another foreigner was The Hunt (2.9). English language best were Captain Phillips and Philomena (both 2.9).

 

Some other good films from recent years were:

Last Tango in Halifax (Season Two)	2012	3.2
Parenthood (Season Five)	2014	3.2
Parenthood (Season Four)	2013	3.2
Parenthood (Season One)	2010	3.2
Way, The	2010	3.2
Aftershock	2010	3.1
Bottle in the Gaza Sea, A	2011	3.1
Broken Circle Breakdown, The	2012	3.1
Chasing Ice	2012	3.1
Crime after Crime	2011	3.1
Paradise, The (Season Two)	2012	3.1
West of Memphis	2012	3.1

The links at the right for My Movie Ratings Explained and for movie lists alphabetical and in ratings order have been updated through 2014 and include 3206 listings.