Tag: Documentary

Homecoming is a film by Beyoncé

Homecoming A Film by Beyonce

The review:

In Homecoming, Beyoncé and Ed Burke capture the magic of Beyoncé’s 2018 Cochella performance which included a drum line, step dancing, tight choreography, a set that includes risers that look like a pyramid, and the power of Beyoncé’s music.* Interspersed with the action on stage are scenes of the planning and execution of this performance including information about why the show was delayed for a year and all of the personal physical preparation Beyoncé had to take to be ready.** This movie is for anyone who likes pageantry, anyone who likes to see how musical performances are created, and for sure, anyone who loves a drum line.***

The verdict: Recommended

Cost: Netflix monthly fee ($8.99)
Where watched: at home

Consider also watching:

  • 20 Feet from Stardom
  • Cabin in the Sky (though it’s from 1943 and thus racist, but the performances are great!)
  • Purple Rain
  • Dreamgirls

Further sentences:

*A true confession exposing my unfortunate proclivities to discount contributions by women and by women of color: After the first five minutes, I had the thought, “I wonder how much of this Beyoncé was around for? Did she slide in after it was all choreographed and put together?” This despite the title: Homecoming: A Film by Beyoncé. Luckily for me, Beyoncé (the director!) anticipated that people might wonder such a thing and I soon realized that she was the creator of everything about this incredible performance. I’m calling out my racist and sexist thought to illustrate that I still have discounting thoughts like that, and I need to catch them when they happen.
**I love that she reported her exact weight before she gave birth to twins, and talked about the difficulties of getting her body into a specific shape in time for this performance. It was also painful to watch, and I wish we lived in a world where women could live in the bodies they have after they give birth.
***I am not a follower of Ms. Knowles’s music; I recognized two songs. This did not distract me from loving every minute of this movie.

Favorite IMDB trivia item:

Beyoncé was paid $8 million to perform at Coachella.
(This was the only trivia item)
(Also: good job Beyoncé)

Other reviews:

Homecoming A Film by Beyonce

I Am Not Your Negro is the Present

I Am Not Your Negro

The review:

Raoul Peck’s I am Not Your Negro is the type of documentary that grabbed me from the preview, because who wouldn’t want to watch James Baldwin talk about stuff? The movie does an excellent job juxtaposing Baldwin’s words (read by Samuel L. Jackson) about the history of race in America with images from the past that spin a different tale of our history. It also pairs his observations about his own contemporary society with our contemporary society and the film’s many quotes that hit you right in the gut.*

The verdict: Recommended

Cost: free via Kanopy, the library’s streaming service.
Where watched: at home

Further sentences:

*This movie does not mention that James Baldwin was a gay man at a time when uncloseted gay men were few and far between. People have criticized the film for this reason.

Questions:

  • Does not having the context of Baldwin’s sexuality detract from the film?
  • How do you see the history of race in America play out in your life?

Favorite IMDB trivia item:

The film is based on James Baldwin’s unfinished manuscript of 30 pages for a novel which has never before been released to the public. The film, in a way, finishes this work by incorporating other interviews and writings by Baldwin and expanding on the themes through archival footage

Other reviews:

I Am Not Your Negro

Stop Making Sense is Phenomenal

Stop Making Sense

The review:

For most of my life, the Talking Heads have been ever present* and so I never prioritized Jonathan Demme’s Stop Making Sense. This was a mistake, because from the first time David Byrne walks on stage this concert documentary is riveting. It’s fun to watch the set be built through the concert, it’s fun to watch the band slowly trickle in, it’s fun to watch the choreography,** and it breathed life into some very well-worn songs and made me hear them in a new way.***

The verdict: Recommended

Cost: $2.99 via Google Play
Where watched: at home

Consider also watching:

  • Homecoming
  • 20 Feet From Stardom
  • The Wrecking Crew
  • Some Kind of Monster
  • The Last Waltz
  • (As in the Miss Americana review this is an aspirational list here. I’ve not seen any of them.)

Further sentences:

*I wouldn’t be surprised if the magic of the internet overlords told me I’d heard some part of “Once in a Lifetime” at least weekly since 1984.
**Which seemed very Jazzercise-esque at times.
***That said, I would have preferred a few more long shots and fewer closeups, because that choreography gets lost, though I have read that the closeups were very innovative at the time. I also love how the crew all came on stage to take a bow at the end. And! No encores in 1984!

Questions:

  • What’s your favorite concert documentary?
  • Could you like a concert doc of a band/musician/genre you didn’t like?

Favorite IMDB trivia item:

David Byrne’s staggering during the latter part of “Psycho Killer” was directly inspired by Fred Astaire in Royal Wedding (1951) during the song “I Left My Hat In Haiti.”

(I have just watched the clip of this and did not find anything that looked like David Byrne’s staggering.)

Other reviews:

Stop Making Sense

Miss Americana: It’s Always Harder if You’re a Woman

Miss Americana

The review:

Lana Wilson shows different facets* of Taylor Swift in Miss Americana from her early days as a teenage country singer to her most current reinvention as a pop superstar.** I’m always a little leery of how accurate the portrayal of the subject is in documentaries of high-profile people—I’m cynical enough to suspect there is some give to get access—regardless, there’s a lot to chew on here.*** Also interesting was seeing how the kids today make music which seems to involve voice recorders on phones and not very many instruments.****

The verdict: Recommended

Cost: Netflix monthly fee ($8.99)
Where watched: at home

Consider also watching:

  • Amy
  • The Wrecking Crew
  • Homecoming: A Film by Beyoncé
  • 20 Feet from Stardom

(Note: I’m terrible at watching documentaries. This is a list of films I want to see!)

Further sentences:

*From awards show ready in a dress that didn’t let her lift her arms higher than her waist to writing songs without makeup and in lounge wear.
**Swift points out that women artists have to reinvent themselves 20 times more often then men do and that is on full display in this documentary.
***I loved that she discussed how seeing images of herself on a daily basis isn’t good for her and lead to disordered eating. It was interesting to see her weigh speaking out about a particular political candidate with potential fan reaction. The isolation was also interesting, and every scene with her cat was a winner.
****I’m always up for music creation sequences and it’s fun to watch the energy grow as the song comes into being.

Questions:

  • Has a documentary about a musician ever changed the way you thought about that person’s music?
  • What profile of a musician would you like see?

Other reviews:

Miss Americana

Also good: I want to work really hard while society is still tolerating me being successful.

2020 Oscar Nominated Documentary Shorts

Overall:

Like last year, the documentary shorts were my favorite. I love these short slices of life, all of which inspired a lot of feelings. I felt wrung out after watching these, but in a better way than the animated shorts.

Note that not all of these individual reviews will have three sentences.

Life Overtakes Me (39 minutes)

This movie starts with a fairy tale-like shot of snow coating branches of trees. It continues by explaining about an illness that is affecting refugee children in Sweden. This was fascinating and a bit horrifying.

The verdict: Recommended

Watch “Life Overtakes Me” on Netflix.

Learning to Skateboard in a Warzone (if you’re a girl) (39 minutes)

I’m always going to go for the stories about the girls. And girls in cultures where girls don’t matter are a big win for me. And movies about skateboarding also are a thing I love.

The verdict: Recommended

Watch “Learning to Skateboard” on A&E.

In the Absence (29 minutes)

In 2014, the Korean ferry Sewol sank and 300 people (many of them children) drowned. This film follows the disaster from the moment the Coast Guard arrives on scene through years of protest and trials. It was painful and horrible and I highly recommend you watch just to see how many everyday people were affected and to hear the stories of those who tried to make a terrible situation better.

The verdict: Recommended.

Watch “In the Absence” on Vimeo.

Walk, Run, Cha-Cha (20 minutes)

After three heavy subjects, this story of a later-in-life couple who love ballroom dance was a crowd pleaser. Paul and Millie Cao met in Vietnam, and were separated when Paul came to the US as a refugee; Millie joined about five years later. In 20 minutes we get a sense of their life together, their friends and family, and their love for Cha Cha.

The verdict: Recommended

Watch “Walk, Run, Cha-Cha” on Vimeo.

St. Louis Superman (28 minutes)

Bruce Franks ran for a seat in the Missouri State Legislature after what happened in Ferguson and this film follows him as he goes about his duties. It’s a great depiction of the difficult realities of political office and shows off Franks’s talents speaking to people and inspiring them.

The verdict: Good

Watch a trailer for “St. Louis Superman” on YouTube.

Cost: $10.00
Where watched: Kiggens Theater

My ranking: (winner in bold)

  • Learning to Skateboard in a Warzone (if you’re a girl)
  • In the Absence
  • Life Overtakes Me
  • Walk, Run, Cha Cha
  • St. Louis Superman

2020 Oscar Nominated Animated Shorts

Overall:

I came out of the Animated Shorts feeling defeated and depressed. Thank goodness for the wacky Hors Piste—a bonus feature, and the very brief Maestro. All of the shorts this year are about death or loss, mostly directly, sometimes tangentially.

Also, these reviews aren’t necessarily going to be three sentences each.

Hair Love (7 minutes)

A girl wants to make her hair look nice, but despite online tutorial vidoes, is too young to have the skills. Her father is nervous, but willing to try. Very sweet and funny, this is the feel-good short.

The verdict: Good

Watch “Hair Love” on YouTube here.

Dcera (Daughter) (15 minutes)

Stop motion animation with papier-mâché figures that focuses on a father and daughter relationship. Aside from being depressing, the animation of the eyeballs weirded me out. This was a very long fifteen minutes.

The verdict: Skip

Pay to watch “Dcera” here.

Sister (8 minutes)

Felted dolls tell this story about a man’s childhood memories of his sister. In places, the animation was weird in a good way and this story hit me hard. This was my favorite.

The verdict: Recommended

Website information here.

Kitbull (9 minutes)

This is Pixar-adjacent, the story of a feral kitten who makes a new friend. I was all in for the antics of the black feral kitten (my home includes a formerly feral, now-grown kitten who jumped around just like this one) but another animal was in danger in a way that made me angry and after that I was having none of this short.

The verdict: Skip

Watch “Kitbull” on YouTube here.

Memorable (12 minutes)

Another stop-motion animated entry, this was the most artsy of the bunch. In it, a painter and his wife experience changes. It illustrated a depressing topic in beautiful color and motion.

The verdict: Skip

“Memorable” is not available to watch.

Shorts TV, the organization who distributes the Oscar-Nominated films to theaters, probably couldn’t justify sending out a 51-minute program. So there was some padding added. And thank goodness, because the last two shorts managed to turn around the depressing topics.

Henrietta Bulkowski (16 minutes)

Another stop-motion entry, this is the story of a woman with kyphosis (when the spine curves and gives a hunchback) who wants to be a pilot. I enjoyed how fantastically weird this film was.

The verdict: Good

Website is here.

The Bird and the Whale (6 minutes)

This was gorgeous. It’s 4,300 paintings on glass paired with an original score by Chris McLoughlin. But when you have a bird in a cage as the sole survivor of a shipwreck, you’ve got an animal in peril and that’s a no-go for me.

The verdict: Skip

Website is here.

Hors Piste (5 minutes)

God bless Hors Piste for its tale of mountain rescue workers whose mission doesn’t go as planned. The CGI brings a funny veneer to the story and the poor fellow being rescued has increasingly amusing expressions.

The verdict: Recommended

Trailer is here.

Maestro (2 minutes)

This is two minutes of a squirrel directing a cast of forest animals in a bit of opera. There’s nothing not to like here.

The verdict: Recommended

Watch “Maestro” on Vimeo here.

Cost: $9.75
Where watched: Living Room Theaters

My ranking: (winner in bold)

  • Sister
  • Hors Piste
  • Hair Love
  • Henrietta Bulkowski
  • Maestro
  • Memorable
  • The rest are just: No!

Perfect Bid: Place a bet on this one

The review:

C.J. Wallis’ Perfect Bid: The Contestant Who Knew Too Much is gripping, and exists at the intersection of Quirky Fellow Avenue and Super Nice Guy Way. For anyone with more than a few hours of the game show the Price is Right under their belt,* this will be a nostalgic walk back to “Come on down! You’re the next contestant on the Price is Right,” and the showcase showdown, and all those models pointing at things.** Ultimately, Theodore Slauson is a good guy*** and his fascination with, and attempts to get on, the game show make for a surprisingly engaging documentary.****

The verdict: Good

Cost: Netflix monthly fee ($8.99)
Where watched: at home

Further sentences:

*Guilty! I watched this show a lot during my pre-teen and early teenage years, especially during the summer.
**Not to mention the inherent sexism intertwined with Barkers Beauties, but this documentary is not about that. (That sounds like it would be an also interesting, yet much less cheery, documentary.)
***The show also interviews Roger Dobkowitz, the longtime producer of the show, and Bob Barker. All interviews look on the bright side of things.
****I found the ending to be slipshod. Is the current situation with the show as Drew Carey has outlined, that there are now just too many prizes to memorize?

3SMReviews: The Gleaners and I

3SMReviews: The Gleaners and I

The Gleaners and I was my first Agnes Varda film and I suspect it won’t be my last, even though I don’t watch documentaries all that often. Varda examines gleaners–from those groups of women depicted in paintings, to the individuals who glean today in the fields, or on the city streets.* Varda sometimes wanders a little far afield from her topic, but her delight at all things made for a good movie and the information about produce wasted provides much to think about.**

Verdict: Good

Cost: free from library
Where watched: at home in preparation for Filmspotting Madness 2019

*Given what they glean we might call them by more judgmental names.
**Yes I did just stop myself from typing “food for thought.”

Poster clipped from: https://www.festival-cannes.com/en/films/les-glaneurs-et-la-glaneuse#pid=7038