"TBD"
PINNED: this newsletter is supposed to be a friendly recapping of the movies in, and coming to, theaters. But things be real weird right now. So until that changes in earnest, I'll either be suggesting old favorites to revisit, pointing out recent flicks you may have missed or calling out notable new VOD / streaming options.
Oh look, it's a new year and stuff is... kinda the same? 🤷♂️ That's the thing about made up designations, they're not real. I mean sure, for tax purposes or resolutions they are, but for what the average person's life looks like from a Thursday to a Friday? Well, that's still just one sunrise to the next. But change does happen, it often just takes time - too much of it in certain cases, but it happens. The four documentaries I'm featuring this week all deal with the passing of the seconds in some respect - they also happen to be (some of) the best reviewed of the year. Consider this your opportunity to hold to your commitment to become that more informed and empathetic person you always wanted to be.
Regarding trailers this week; I'm not doing a whole section because there's only one that's legitimately new. It's for one of the first movies not only shot during lockdown, but about the lockdown. It's (indubitably) titled... Locked Down. It has stars, Anne Hathaway and Chiwetel Ejiofor, a legit director in Doug Liman (Mr. & Mrs. Smith, Edge of Tomorrow), but it was shot on an indie budget and timeline. Which you can kind of feel in the beginning until the heist part begins. Heist? Yeah, you'll have to watch to check it out.
The only other previews are second pieces for Regina King's One Night in Miami... and the, featuring more cliches than bullets fired, shoot 'em up Netflix joint Outside the Wire (starring Anthony Mackie). If you're curious, they're on this playlist.
(SOME OF) THE BEST REVIEWED DOCS OF 2020
(starting left side top to bottom)
TIME: Good chance you've watched or heard of the Ava DuVernay directed documentary 13th that dissected mass incarceration and race. That movie did a great job of taking a wholistic view of the situation. TIME looks at it more intimately. The movie follows Fox Rich who, along with her husband Rob, took part in armed robbery in 1997 during what they describe as a desperate time in their life. Fox served three years for driving the getaway car, but Rob was sentenced to sixty. However, this movie isn't about guilt or innocence, but about repercussions - often in the day to day sense. Because while the notion of a person doing penance for a crime is simple, the realities of the consequences are far more difficult to grapple with. Solutions and opinions are in abundance on issues like this, but empathy for them is often in far shorter supply. Maybe this movie will shift that if even a little.
Watch On: Amazon Prime
Trailer | PG-13 | 1 hr 21 mins
Rotten Tomatoes: 98% (Certified Fresh)
Athlete A: Documentaries usually do a pretty good job of highlighting aspects of our world. Sometimes the topics covered can be enlightening or touching, but often times, they're hard. For example, who will enjoy reconsidering the gymnastic performances they may have admired in the Olympics after they understand they were built on sexual assault and bullying? In one sense, it makes them even more impressive, considering the circumstances. But it also makes them sad. And we don't like being sad. But then you remember how the athletes featured in Athlete A must have felt, and how even after the hard stuff they went through, they still told their stories to prevent others from enduring the same.
Because yeah, it'll be hard to hear about the abuse by Larry Nassar, the doctor who assaulted hundreds of girls, or the coverup by USA Gymnastics, or the culture of shaming and bullying within high-level US gymnastics coaching.
But as the film's subject will teach us, sometimes doing hard things can produce good results.
Watch On: Netflix
Trailer | PG-13 | 1 hr 43 mins
Rotten Tomatoes: 100% (Certified Fresh)
Dick Johnson is Dead: We're all gonna die! *ahem* Sorry, that came across more alarmist than needed. But it is true. Director Kirsten Johnson (and you guessed it, daughter to Dick Johnson) approaches this truism with dark humor by not waiting for dementia to kill her father, but instead offs him herself - over and over again. In the cinematic sense, of course. This may seem too macabre for some and plain old crazy to others, but if you watch, you'll likely understand the cathartic value their father-daughter adventure holds for them and us viewers.
Watch On: Netflix
Trailer | PG-13 | 1 hr 40 mins
Rotten Tomatoes: 95% (Certified Fresh)
Crip Camp: It's interesting a movie that details a lot of hardship and strife can be considered a "feel-good movie." But that's what a lot of the reviews called it when Crip Camp (produced by the Obamas) was released. Maybe it's because we hate to see people struggle, but we love to see them overcome. Although the subjects of Crip Camp may not be overcoming their own problems, so much as the problems of those around them. See, the movie is about a summer camp in the 70's where people with disabilities were treated like (shock!) people, instead of disabled people. Some of the attendees took the energy and community from their time at the camp and turned it into activism: for social recognition of their situation and for legal rights. But it didn't stop there, this movie was actually directed by one of the campers (James Lebrecht) who makes the case that one formative summer can have a lifetime of repercussions.
Watch On: Netflix
Trailer | R | 1 hr 47 mins
Rotten Tomatoes: 100% (Certified Fresh)
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