Showing posts with label documentary. Show all posts
Showing posts with label documentary. Show all posts
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26 March 2015
DVD Review - Sirius (2013)
Genre:
Documentary
Distributor:
Matchbox Films
DVD Release Date:
9th March 2015 (UK)
Rating: 15
Director:
Amardeep Kaleka
Cast:
Thomas Jane, Jack Auman, Corrado Balducci
Buy:Sirius [DVD]
Sirius is indeed a hefty piece of work, just not in terms of the type of extra-terrestrial involvement you’re probably looking for. But as an extensive essay on late capitalist society, it’s pretty conclusive and fairly upsetting to be honest. Steven Greer and Emmy award winning filmmaker Amardeep Kaleka, strip back years of deceit to unearth heaps of alarming info on mindboggling cover-ups.
Sirius, the name given to a six-inch skeleton of unknown origin, is really just the starting point for Greer and his colleagues. Anyone who’s holding out for conclusive info may be somewhat upset by the fact the mini-mystery only bookends this epic portrait of human development- or lack of it. The main point of Sirius is to systematically present evidence and conjecture around governmental cover-ups and attempts to hide the true treasure of extra-terrestrial visitation: the science it would take to achieve space travel.
Yes, its mechanics not biology we’re really interested in here, especially when you go back and start combining religious scripture, atom bombing, and the pyramids. It’s a conspiracy fan’s wet dream and it’s executed with startling clarity, even if it wanders off topic, things usually pull together succinctly.
Sirius is perhaps too big for its boots, gnawing on the oversized bone of American political inadequacies in a kind of roundabout, all-inclusive, history lesson/economics case study. And all this starts with a tiny little, potentially extra-terrestrial, skeleton. It may be hard to remember that though, once the, sometimes whimsical, left-wing call-to-arms presents itself.
Painstakingly, and scientifically, put together, Sirius is an impressive documentary, but its meandering interest curve may prove too much for people simply interested in the origins of a baffling body.
★★★1/2
Scott Clark
12 March 2015
DVD Review - Big Star: Nothing Can Hurt Me (2012)
Genre:
Documentary
Distributor:
UMC
Rating: TBA
Director:
Drew DeNicola, Olivia Mori
Release: 2nd March 2015
Buy: Nothing Can Hurt Me [DVD]
Nothing Can Hurt Me is a documentary of the cult band Big Star from Memphis, Tennessee. They bridged the gap between The Velvet Underground and what would later become punk rock, and more specifically the power pop and paisley underground that would come in it’s wake. It was the brainchild of two songwriters, Alex Chilton and Chris Bell.
The documentary, like the band’s fame, is a bit too late for it’s own good. The film really started filming around the time of Alex Chilton’s death and Chris Bell has been dead since the late ‘70s. Chilton also was notoriously cagey about speaking about his time in Big Star, and when him and Jody Stephens reformed the band, he admitted it was for the money many times. The film’s crucial flaw is that there is no on video interview with Chilton - there are audio interviews and some archive stuff but that’s all. Chilton, after all, wrote most of the band’s enduring songs.
It however does successfully tell the story of the band, and to some extent gets into the heads of the two songwriters, not from the outside but through the people who knew them. It’s very much a musos doc as oppose to a biography of the band; there is a lot of talk about the album’s production. I’m a massive fan of Big Star but, for the most part, couldn’t care less about the production techniques they used. This can also be said of anyone when they talk about the plus and minuses of album’s production.
Sadly there is very little footage of the band, mostly just silent footage of them in the studio. It’s a fascinating story of a band that nearly made it, but due to so many different factors didn’t quite make get there. What a different world we would live in if Big Star were as big as one of their contemporaries like Led Zeppelin. It’s very well made given the limitations they had, but if you're looking for a deeply insightful documentary into the minds of the bands’ songwriters you may come out of it disappointed.
★★★1/2
Ian Schultz
9 March 2015
Blu-ray Review - Devo - Hardcore Live! (2015)
Genre:
Concert documentary
Distributor:
Wienerworld
Rating:Exempt
Director:
Keirda Bahruth
Release: 2nd March 2015
Buy: Devo -Hardcore Live! [Blu-ray]
Hardcore Live! is the first proper concert film by pioneering “New Wave” band Devo. There has been a handful of Devo concerts on DVD but never really a concert film in the tradition of a Talking Heads’ Stop Making Sense, despite an appearance in the cult classic Urgh! a Music War. It received a small theatrical run Stateside but has just come out on Blu-Ray/DVD over here.
The set up is a back to basics approach to Devo, founding member Bob 2 (Bob Casale) sadly passed away in early 2014 and the surviving members decided in tribute to do a short tour of the US playing the early “Hardcore” songs, and for the most part ignoring their later songs. They also mostly use vintage analogue equipment to replicate the original sound. The “Hardcore” recordings were also reissued in 2013 after being out of print for a long time too much acclaim from fans and critics.
Devo, to anyone who has been lucky enough to witness them live (I’ve seen them twice), will know that they are much more intense on stage than on their records. Lead singer Mark Mothersbaugh stares out everyone in the hall, and for a band that for the most part is made up of men in their 60s, they out play any young band in pure intensity. The first part of this concert however is a deliberately subdued performance of them going through early songs sitting on chairs making jokes in-between the songs pretending they are still stuck in their in basement in mid 70s. Devo opens with the futuristic “Mechanical Man” and plow through tracks like “Auto Modown” and “I Been Refused”.
The show ups the pace when they change into their early blue boiler suits (not the later, more well known yellow suits) and play their mutated version of The Rolling Stones’ enduring classic “Satisfaction”. They just completely burn the house down like every time they perform, they play some stuff off their first album like “Uncontrollable Urge” and Devolution rallying call “Jocko Homo”. They also play obscurities like “Fountain of Filth” and they finally do a touching encore featuring Bob 2’s son on bass of “Clock Out”, a song they last played live in 1977.
The concert is interspersed with interviews with the remaining members talking about the early days, Bob 2, their philosophy etc. It also includes interviews with Toni Basil (of “Mickey” fame), and with the great V. Vale, founder of Re/Search publications and early punk zine Search & Destroy, who has been a Devo fan since the very beginning. It brings some interesting commentary to the proceedings for a band who were sometimes completely misunderstood by critics.
The final product is a superbly entertaining concert film, that is moving and more exciting than most. It’s directed by Keirda Bahruth, who is mostly known for television work, but did also direct the documentary on musician Bob Forrest. The footage is extremely well shot, my only criticism is it could’ve used some colour correction near the end to give it a more seamless colour palette. The disc includes a feature to just play the concert without the interviews and alternative opening along with a short scene showing the creation of Mark’s mutant guitar.
★★★★
Ian Schultz
6 March 2015
GFF2015 Review - Tales Of The Grim Sleeper (2015)
Genre:
Documentary
Distributor:
Shear Entertainment
Rating: 15
Screened:
Glasgow Film Festival
Director:
Nick Bromfield
Cast:
Pam Brooks
In 2010 Lonnie Franklin Jr was arrested for the crimes of the so-called ‘Grim Sleeper’, a serial killer active in downtown LA since the early 80’s. His capture came after 25 years of botched investigations and public outcry, his moniker awarded due to the Sleeper’s apparent habit of killing only once every few years. The moniker, like the investigation, is a fallacy and Franklin Jr is now thought to be responsible for well over a hundred disappearances. Nick Broomfield reveals the truth behind the case in his latest documentary Tales of the Grim Sleeper
Broomfield continues to be one of the legends of contemporary documentary filmmaking because he is continually content to throw himself into subject matter that most would find uncomfortable. But he seems so at ease yet never laid back, so sharp in his questioning but never confrontational. His monotonous tones slide their way around fields of venture alien to the vast majority. His work with serial killer Aileen Wuornos picks out the blatant sexism of American justice, but also the total disregard shown for sex workers. Its in Tales of the Grim Sleeper that Broomfield has perhaps provided the best canvas for issues of sexism, race, and class. His is, more than ever, a supporting voice in the plight of those shoehorned into the fringes of society.
At the very least, there is an attempt to highlight sex work as a site of gross cultural apathy, for Broomfield finds himself at the heart of a story as-of-yet shockingly untold. The police have, for years, danced around the concrete facts of the case (A, that there was a serial killer, and B that the public needed to know) so Tales of the Grim Sleeper appears to be the first full account of what has happened. Frankly it’s disturbing, but not surprising, that the white-run LAPD have never given as varied, in-depth, and honest an account as this. Broomfield minimises issues around his own role, as white alien, by minimising the white voices in the film and letting the story play out courtesy of those who have lived it. An unflinching respect for the black community of LA paired with an unspoken disregard for the bureaucracy that permitted a 25 year reign of terror make this an acidic and astute piece of filmmaking.
Between the blatant racism of American police and the homogenized sexism of one of LA’s poorest areas, Broomfield’s latest looks at the perfect storm which enabled the Grim Sleeper to kill unchallenged for a quarter century. Terrifying arresting viewing.
★★★★
Scott Clark
11 February 2015
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