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Posted Documentaries

SXSW: Tread

In 2004, Marv Heemeyer drove his bulldozer through Granby, Colorado destroying building after building. He carefully selected his targets. These were the townspeople whom he felt had been the cause of many injustices against his beloved muffler shop. Marv’s bulldozer was no ordinary machine. He’d modified it to function like a military tank and created an impenetrable seal armed with it cameras and semi-automatic rifles. He was on a suicide mission. Before that fateful day in June, Marv recorded his suicide note with incredible detail about his motivations behind. The rampage lasted for over 2 hours and no matter how many attempts by the local police force made to thwart his efforts the fact is that they couldn’t. A simple miscalculation was his undoing. Ultimately no one was killed in the incident, except for Marv, but it took years for his victims to recover from the loss. The event made national headlines before it was eclipsed by President Ronald Reagan’s death the next day. 

Director Paul Solet’s Tread is a compelling and slick documentary about this little known event. It explores Marv’s motivations for the rampage and features many interviews with his targets and also his girlfriend at the time. His family refused to speak on record for the project. Solet also recreates many key scenes with actors. The rampage itself is a thrilling reenactment done with very little CGI. The filmmaking crew created their own version of the modified bulldozer for those scenes.

I have mixed feelings about the film. Visually its stunning but perhaps a bit too slick. I usually don’t care for reenactments but these were tastefully done. I thought the film overall was a bit too polished with some fancy drone shots and slow motion action sequences that felt unnecessary. I did however appreciate the archival footage as well as Marv’s audio recording which juxtaposed with all the interviews made it feel very balanced. With that said, I was rooting for Marv the whole time. I’m not sure if that speaks more to my own feelings or to how Marv was portrayed in the doc.

In the end, Tread was for me a thrilling revenge story that probably should have been something else entirely.

Tread had its world premiere at the 2019 SXSW Film Festival as part of their Documentary Spotlight series.

Posted 1 Comment on SXSW: The Beach Bum Film Festivals

SXSW: The Beach Bum

Moondog (Matthew McConaughey) goes with the flow. A free-spirited poet, Moondog spends his days drinking, getting high and gallivanting around Key West. His wife Minnie (Isla Fisher), a wealthy socialite drawn to Moondog’s nonconformity, calls Moondog back to Miami for their daughter’s wedding. When tragedy strikes, Moondog’s inheritance is at stake. He must buckle down and get his next poetry collection written and published. Will Moondog be able to stop partying enough to finally write his next masterpiece?

As we follow him on his journey, we meet the motley crew of characters who inhabit Moondog’s world. There’s Lingerie (Snoop Dogg) the tycoon who lives large and has an affair with Moondog’s wife Minnie. Moondog and Lingerie party with their buddy Jimmy Buffett. In rehab Moondog meets Flicker (Zac Efron), a hip partier with a penchant for vaping and beard shaved to look like tiger stripes. Out of rehab, Moondog gets a job with his friend Captain Wack (Martin Lawrence), who takes families out on dolphin tours and makes one rather unfortunate mistake. Moondog’s literary agent Lewis (Jonah Hill) seems to be just as happy to talk business as he is partying. The most sensible person in Moondog’s world is his daughter Heather (Stefania LaVie Owen) who is seemingly straight-laced but still embraces her parents’ eccentric personalities.

Director Harmony Korine’s The Beach Bum is one wild ride. Several film critics complained that the film meanders but in my opinion that’s one of the strengths. Korine allows the viewer to settle in for a while and live and breathe with the characters. The adventures of Moondog and his cohorts had me laughing and scratching my head. Korine’s brand of weird not be for everyone but I dug it. The story is a big “f*ck you” to conformity, culture and social norms. I live for Korine’s slow motion sequences and this film features a hilarious one starring Moondog and group of vagabonds (whom he literally just met hours earlier) breaking into his wife’s locked up mansion and causing utter chaos.

Moondog fits McConaughey like a well-worn glove. Jonah Hill seems to have modeled his performance after Truman Capote. I wish there was more time with Snoop Dogg, Martin Lawrence and Zac Efron’s characters. For you Parrotheads out there, Jimmy Buffett has a small role playing himself. I absolutely loved Isla Fisher’s character Minnie, perhaps my favorite in the film, but I wish her story line had taken a different turn than it did. Alas.

It’s important to note the representations of sexuality in this film. The women used as ornamental sex objects, specifically in a scene when McConaughey, Buffett and Snoop Dogg are partying on a boat, is outdated and sexist. This might have worked for a rap video ten years ago but doesn’t work today. I can’t tell if Korine is poking fun at this or if this is part of the hedonistic lifestyle. On the flip side, it was interesting to see a scene between Isla Fisher and McConaughey where the female protagonist is receiving oral pleasure. A rarity especially in American cinema.

As someone who works in book publishing, I found the story line of Moondog’s poetry career weak at best. It gives the film some semblance of a plot but you have to suspend your disbelief that Moondog is actually a genius who can win top literary awards for his work. I wasn’t buying it.

The Beach Bum is not as good as Korine’s Mister Lonely, which is still my favorite, or the more comparable Spring Breakers, but is enjoyable fare if you’re on board. And you have to be on board for this ride.

The Beach Bum had its world premiere at the 2019 SXSW Film Festival as a headliner. It releases in theaters on March 29th.

Posted 2 Comments on SXSW: Salvage Documentaries

SXSW: Salvage

They say one man’s trash is another man’s treasure. This is absolutely true for the residents of Yellowknife in Northwest Territories, Canada. Home to one of the last open landfills in North America, the Yellowknife dump is a salvager’s delight. These prospectors hunt for objects they can reuse and recycle. Some of the items thrown away are brand new or in perfect condition, others need some TLC. In a town with a long history of gold and diamond mining, these salvagers find treasure in their own unique way.

Director Amy C. Elliott’s documentary Salvage is an intimate portrait of a community in flux. In one of the most isolated areas in North America that’s ever changing with increased government regulation and population growth, the livelihood of these salvagers is in jeopardy. Elliott’s film explores three aspects of this community: the individuals who salvage and their personal motivations in doing so, the dangers of salvaging with exposure to sharp objects and disease and the government officials who are trying to control the landfill to protect the citizens. 

Elliott’s film delivers a powerful message about wastefulness and resourcefulness but doesn’t do so in a heavy handed way. The audience is left to come to their own conclusions about how what their own approach to trash and recycling. Part of the fun of watching the film is learning about the individual salvagers and watching as they discover treasures at the dump. Some of the items include wedding dresses, brand new clothes with the tags still on them, Halloween costumes, glass jars, 60 lbs of bagged vermicelli, scraps of wood, antiques, toys, moccasins, photo albums and much more. 

One of the biggest takeaways from this film for me was how lazy we are as consumers and the stigma that surrounds resourcefulness. The term “microcosm” is thrown around a lot in the film and Yellowknife dump truly is a microcosm of the community but it’s also a microcosm of society and the inherent dangers with progress. We lose something important when we’re not able take care of ourselves, our community and our planet.

Salvage is a fascinating documentary and viewers will gain perspective on what it means to be part of a consumer culture.

Salvage had its world premiere at the 2019 SXSW Film Festival as part of their Documentary Spotlight series. Stay tuned as I’ll be interviewing the director Amy C. Elliott for this site!

Posted Documentaries

In Search of Greatness

“The people who achieve real greatness don’t fit the formula at all. They break the mold.” 

Sir Ken Robinson

Playing it safe is stifling. So is being too structured and rigid in your training. For those athletes who’ve climbed to the top of their sport, the key to success has come from several factors that they could and could not control. 

Gabe Polsky’s documentary In Search of Greatness analyzes the psychology behind sports greatest athletes. In-depth interviews with Wayne Gretzky, Pele and Jerry Rice as well as an examination of other champions from a variety of sports, reveals what it takes to make it. You might be surprised what you learn.

Some of the fascinating revelations in this documentary come from the advancements in technology and training that claim to offer a way to weed out the weak have the potential to miss the best of the best. 

What makes an athlete a champion? These are individuals who have passion, vision and talent. Journalist David Epstein says they require both rage and the ability to learn quickly. They cannot have one without the other. These athletes are perfectionists who obsess over small details and want to fine tune their craft to a greater extent where others would have given up or were satisfied with less. They use doubt as motivation, are highly competitive and benefit from the guidance of mentors but also follow their own path.

Interview subjects

  • Wayne Gretzky – hockey
  • Pele – soccer
  • Jerry Rice – football
  • David Epstein – journalist
  • Sir Ken Robinson – education and creativity expert

Other athletes discussed at length

  • Venus and Serena Williams – tennis
  • John McEnroe – tennis
  • Muhammad Ali – boxing 
  • Tony Hawk – skateboarding
  • Michael Jordan – basketball
  • Tom Brady – football
  • Rocky Marciano – Boxing
Wayne Gretzky
Pele
Jerry Rice

“Our society encourages formulaic approaches to chasing dreams. These icons’ trajectories prove that mastery cannot be manufactured.”

Gabe Polsky

Every helicopter parent out there who seeks greatness for their sports kid and puts them in a rigid program that leaves them overtrained and hating life needs to watch this film. I trained at an athletic center for over 3 years and I would watch these parents yell at their kids for making simple mistakes. If their kid was truly passionate about the sport and a professional career was a possibility, they were doing everything to make it not happen. If they watch In Search of Greatness, they’d learn a thing or two about their harmful behavior.

In Search of Greatness is a fascinating documentary with a ground-breaking message. This is a necessary viewing for anyone interested in sports psychology. Even if you’re not a sports person, the message about passion and the key to success is inspiring for anyone pursuing a career. 

My only complaint about the film is that the subjects in the film are overwhelmingly male, with Serena Williams as a notable exception. I’d love to see a follow-up documentary with a focus on female athletes.

In Search of Greatness will be available on iTunes in April. Visit the official website for more information on how you can host a screening.

Posted DVD Netflix

BlacKkKlansman

This post is sponsored by DVD Netflix.

“Those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it.”

Set in Colorado circa 1972, BlacKkKlansman follows the Ron Stallworth (John David Washington) as he navigates the racially charged atmosphere of his new job and community. Ron has a passion for police work but being the first black cop at his department means the odds are stacked against him. After he’s promoted to undercover work, he meets and becomes smitten with Patrice (Laura Harrier), a civil rights activist attending a Kwame Ture (Corey Hawkins) event. He’s then assigned to gather intelligence on a local chapter of the KKK. Caught between these two worlds, he devises a plan. He’ll inflitrate the KKK with the help of his white coworker Flip Zimmerman (Adam Driver) who will do undercover work in person while Ron speaks to key figures, including Grand Wizard David Duke (Topher Grace) on the phone. The tension in Colorado Springs escalates as the Black Panther activists increase their activity and the KKK devises a bomb plot to take out protestors. Ron and Flip must find a way to save their community and themselves before their true identities are revealed.

Spike Lee’s BlacKkKlansman makes a bold political statement about racism in an effective way. The film is based on the true story of undercover cop Ron Stallworth. Lee and his writing team used Stallworth’s memoir as the basis for the script but made some key changes including a shift in the timeline and the addition of the bomb plot. The final chapter of the film directly links the events in the story to those of the Unite the Right Rally  and the deadly car attack in Charlottesville, VA in 2017. By connecting the past and the present, Lee’s film is giving a clear warning to the future.

Stylistically BlacKkKlansman is stunning. It’s quite an achievement to make the 1970s, known for faded oranges, yellows and browns, look vibrant and colorful. I love how the film stayed true to the era but still finds a way to appeal to the modern eye. As a classic film enthusiast I’d be remiss not to point out how elated I was to see African-American performer and activist Harry Belafonte in the film. He has a small part as Jerome Turner, an elderly man who recounts his stories of witnessing atrocities. His scene is juxtaposed with a KKK initiation ceremony. That whole sequence packs a powerful punch.

BlacKkKlansman is nominated for 6 Academy Awards including Best Original Score, Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Director (Spike Lee), Best Supporting Actor (Adam Driver) and Best Film Editing. I highly recommend following up your viewing of BlacKkKlansman with the documentary Alt-Right: Age of Rage which I reviewed a few months back. 

As a DVD Nation Director, I earn rewards from DVD Netflix. You can rent BlacKkKlansman on DVD.com

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