Investigative
Once upon a time unions were central to the American economy and culture. No more. What they once were and what they've now become can be seen in this detailed documentary about an 8-month-long strike at the Spam meat packing plant in Minnesota. It feels like the last gasp of former heavy weight. As the local union fights in total desperation, first against management, then their own national union, and eventually against each other, the unexpected drama kept me watching.
-- KK
American Dream
Barbara Kopple
1991, 102 min.
DVD, $10
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Posted on June 12, 2008 at 3:35 AM
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As usual Michael Moore parades a series of on-camera publicity stunts to make a larger point: universal health care in the US is possible, desirable, and even all-American. Health care insurance may seem like the least likely fun subject to have to sit through, but as usual Moore is so hugely entertaining, you won't regret it. I have no idea if this film has changed anyone else's mind, but it moved mine a bit. It doesn't take much to blow holes in the current system. If you keep in mind that Moore makes agitprop films -- films that are not meant to be evenhanded and balanced -- then his jeremiads against the failures of this large health system make great watching. It is theater in the best sense of the word.
-- KK
Sicko
Michael Moore
2007, 123 min.
$20, DVD
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Posted on December 18, 2007 at 9:42 AM
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Everyone has a book they read as a teenager that changed their life. When he was 17, the guy making this documentary read a book review in the New York Times that heralded a new first novel by a young author as the voice of his generation, and one of the greatest novels written. Our guy never finished the book, but later in his 50's (that's now) he finally reads the whole thing and decides that it was indeed one of the greatest novels ever written. But there's not a trace of the brilliant author anywhere including the web. How odd! He writes one of the best books ever, which no one reads, and then disappears. None of the teachers, critics, editors who worked on the book, or even his agent knows what happened to him. The film then becomes a quest for this disappeared genius. The obsessed director travels all around the country trying to track him down. Along the way, he interviews book-nerdy friends, famous authors, librarians, wise old professors, writing teachers, and anyone else with something to say about the meaning of reading and novels, and maybe some clue on the destiny of this one-time genius. Perhaps he is still alive secretly writing great unpublished books in his drawer? The more elusive the author becomes, the deeper the filmmaker gets into the power of books to change our lives. This is a film about the love of reading, and the difficulty of making something worth reading. It's quirky, vibrant, personal, and original. As a reader and devourer of books, I loved it.
-- KK
Stone Reader
Mark Moskowitz
2002, 128 min.
$36, DVD, 2 discs
Rentable from Netflix
Available from Amazon
A fantastic documentary tracing the earliest human migration on this planet, as shown by our genetic roots. This informative film, full of surprising news, is based on the work of Spencer Wells, who is both innovative scientist and enthusiastic host. He and crew scour the world for indigenous people with deep roots in one place, asking for samples of DNA to test, in order to piece together our "big family" genetic tree. In Indiania Jones mode, Wells tacks down common ancestors and comes up with some surprising candidates which he interviews. The best parts are when he returns with DNA results and we see the diverse ways in which people and tribes react to the news of what science says about their arrival and relations. View this as adventure travel or as a painless way to begin your genetic literacy.
-- KK
The Journey of Man: A Genetic Odyssey
With Spencer Wells
2003, 120 min.
$30, DVD
Available from PBS
Rent from Netflix
Posted on July 31, 2006 at 5:00 AM
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More guerilla theater than a documentary, this is a road trip by trouble-maker Michael Moore as he chases down an unwanted interview with the remote head of General Motors. Moore resorts to a bag of tricks and subterfuge to dispense his political message on the way. The result is funny, infuriating, verbose, sly, arrogant and hilarious all at once. If you like to watch the little guy tweek the big guy, you'll like this.
-- KK
Roger and Me
Directed by Michael Moore
1989, 90 min
$18, DVD
Available from Amazon
Rentable from Netflix
This was not what I expected. I thought it would be a predictable leftist documentary screed against the evils of capitalism as represented by the biggest corporate scam ever -- Enron. Instead it was a very intelligent, subtle and fascinating protrait of the three principle leaders of Enron, and how their dream came back to kill them. It does a fabulous job of making the complexities of this intricate business case understandable, and the personalities behind the events real. And make no mistake. The disaster stems from the personalities. What I learned: Enron did deliver some great innovations, some of which will likely have to be invented again. But they also unleashed a company culture where competition and greed was paramount and not tempered by any other value, and in the end this unbridled greed ate them all up and destroyed the fortunes of many innocents. It's a great film and should be shown in every business school.
-- KK
Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room
Directed by Alex Gibney
2006, 110 min.
$14, DVD
Available from Amazon
Rentable from Netflix
This film is not about the civil war, nor Sherman's March. It began with those, but the filmmaker quickly diverts his grant money to film his own autobiographical march through the south where he grew up. As he visits old girlfriends and finds new ones, his camera is running. He films himself painfully asking women why they won't marry him, or in private to himself, why he won't commit. This extremely internal journey sounds like a recipe for cinematic disaster and by every expectation this film should be a boring wreck. But it isn't. The film is saved by the women he meets. Each southern belle he records is more fascinating than the last, each looming larger, each unforgettable in an almost Dickensian way. While the filmmaker hides his anxieties behind his camera, a strange beauty erupts out of the intensity and passion of his girl friends. There are more interesting strong women in this film than any film I've seen. Nothing else visibly happens in the film. If you stare hard enough at normal life it begins to wiggle, and in this film an introspective guy keeps staring until the ordinary become astounding. The film is sweet and funny and oddly endearing.
-- KK
Sherman's March
Directed by Ross McElwee
1986, 155 min.
$27, DVD
Available from Amazon
Rentable from Netflix
Many deaf people reject the idea that deafness is a handicap. To the shock of the rest of us, the hearing, they view the *loss of deafness* a sin. The passion to remain deaf is brought into conflict with conventional norms in this amazing documentary when two brothers -- one deaf and one hearing -- need to decide whether to give their deaf children cochlear era implants. Complicating this decision are their unusual families. The deaf brother married a deaf woman and they have 3 deaf children. They refuse to let their incredibly bright 5-year-old deaf daughter get the cochlear ear implant which she wants. They are afraid she will lose the joys of deaf culture. The hearing brother married a hearing woman of two deaf parents, and they have a deaf son. His and his wife's decision to give their newborn synthetic hearing, in opposition to his wife's two deaf parents, puts their families in turmoil (the conflicted parents of the brothers pivot in the center). The fighting escalates till it riles both the proud deaf community and the fix-deafness medical community at large. Everyone hand signs in the films; you follow along with narration, so your immersion into deaf culture is total, deep, shocking, and extremely rewarding. As impossible as it is to believe before you start this great film, for a brief moment you side with the *remain forever deaf* folks.
-- KK
Sound and Fury
2000, 80 min.
Directed by Josh Aronson
$22
Available from Amazon
Rent from Netflix
Sure, it's a foolhardy stunt, to eat three meals a day at McDonalds for 30 days, just to see if it would wreck your body. But the perpetrat or is extremely entertaining, and his hi-jinx are not as fanatical as you might think. His prank diet is also far more informative than any serious expose on bad nutrition. I'll continue to eat at McDonalds, but I really think every school kid in every country of the world offering fast-food should see this movie.
It's fun, brilliant and more memorable than any health class. Real gonzo science video, enjoyable no matter what you eat.
-- KK
Supersize Me
Directed by Morgan Spurlock
2004, 98 min
$15, DVD
Amazon
Netflix
Four elderly brothers share a dairy farm in the boonies of upper New York state. They are barely smarter than their cows, with some kind of genetic dim-wittedness. Without grooming skills, or reason to care, they soon are left alone in their muddy and filthy shack by their neighbors. Until one of the brothers dies. The older brother is charged with murdering him by suffocation as a mercy killing. There is no evidence -- other than two of the brothers' own confessions to the police. But they retract those soon enough. Kind of. Their intelligence seems to fluctuate by whim. This story is about the subtle degrees of mental illness and what is disability (can you run a real farm for 40 years if you are retarded?), and the reach or overreach of law and its cold justice. Mostly you want to know, did the accused brother kill his brother to relieve him of his pain? A honest murder mystery. I liked it because I realized that if I were the cops I would not know what was fair.
-- KK
Brother's Keeper
Directed by Joe Berlinger
1992, 105 min.
$22, DVD
Available from Amazon
Rent from Netflix
This documentary has grown on me. At first I thought it a biased view of a minor argument between a rinky-dink kook and an edgy government agency which doesn't know how to deal with a messiah. The films reconstructs how in 1993 the US government burnt down (accidentally?) a commune of 74 men, women and children after an insane 2-month long siege. All dead were followers of David Koresh, a cultish pastor of a messianic Christianity, who stupidly, recklessly, selfishly (and criminally) put his entire commune in the line of fire and likely death. Yet it is clear that the childish behavior of the US government as it reacted to a bully was far more reckless, stupid and wrong than Koresh's. Over time this film didn't fade away as many activist films do. Rather it has only grown in import as the US has begun to deal with extreme religious believers elsewhere. The events of the standoff and incineration at the church in Waco shows that regardless of who is president, there's no return from hatred once you demonize the antagonist. This film includes revealing home videos made by the believers trapped inside, new aerial film of the crazy bombardment, and first-hand accounts of terrible misunderstandings. If your government hasn't enraged you in a while, try this film. Works for both lefties and right-wingers!
-- KK
Waco: The Rules of Engagement
Directed by William Gazecki
1997, 136 min.
$18, DVD
Available from Amazon
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This unforgetable and legendary documentary relives a real crime from multiple viewpoints. Like Rashmon, you get many versions of the event, each story told from the perspective of a different persuasive person. You don't know who to believe. As variations of the day's events are re-enacted over and over again, your sympathy is whipped back and forth from one plausible person to the next. Eventually, after many changes of mind, the truth dawns on you, as the director Errol Morris hopes it would, and it doesn't jive with the verdict. But because you've gone down so many alternatives, the final conclusion is hard to shake off. After watching this brilliant film the necessary judges admitted ordered a retrial. So now this documentary has the unique distinction of being an artwork responsible for freeing an innocent man wrongly jailed. Not many films can say that. The film is heroic, and more entertaining than the best fictionalized crime show. However, the way the released film influenced the courts in real life, and the bizarre events it unleashed in the lives those it touched, including the director, demand a film of its own, a film that sadly has not been made. You'll have to read about it online. In any case, Thin Blue Line is the canonical crime documentary, impeccably crafted, as it artfully plays upon your belief, and shows how hard it is to discern the truth. It's a great ride.
-- KK
Thin Blue Line
Directed by Errol Morris
1988, 82 min.
$18, DVD
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Michael Moore searches America (and Canada) for an answer to the question of why there are so many gun murders in the US. As a card-caring, gun-toting NRA member Moore reveals this quest to be more complex than you'd might expected. Always the coyote trickster, Moore investigates with great entertainment, and does here what he does best, pressing hard when people try to squirm out of honest answers. For a subject that should be ponderously serious and somber, this is a subtle, surreal and funny trip, and one that can change your mind.
-- KK
Bowling for Columbine
By Michael Moore
2002, 120 min.
$15, DVD
Available from Amazon
Rent from Netflix
This classic documentary treats the political awakening of Native Americans in the 1970s by dissecting the unjust arrest and imprisonment of several Amerindians after a shootout in the reservation village of Oglala, Dakota. You can follow the ins and outs of the evidence, trial, and re-trials, which make their injustice a lot clearer now, in retrospect. Or you can use the interviews and cross-accusations among themselves to see what the world looks like from the dirt roads of the rez.
-- KK
Incident at Oglala: The Leonard Peltier Story
Directed by Michael Apted
1992, 90 min.
$13 DVD
Available from Amazon
Rentable from Netflix
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