Elgar: Fantasy of a Composer on a Bicycle (2002)

Director:
Ken Russell

IMDB

Review:
If you haven't seen this film, sorry but you probably never will. It was commissioned for the South Bank Show, and I wouldn't be surprised if ITV have "accidentally" erased the tapes soon after the broadcast. I have never seen a presenter looking so embarrassed as Melvyn Bragg doing the introduction. Correct me if I am wrong, but I think Melvyn may have had a part in commissioning the original Russell/Elgar film that is still fondly remembered – the first in an ever descending spiral of self-indulgent awfulness of composer biography films that Russell has stuck to ever since (the 1992 film about Bax is a good example). To celebrate the 40th anniversery of this magnum opus the SBS gave Russell carte blanche to self-indulge. Everyone must have known it was going to be a disaster, and those of us who tuned in were not disappointed. It had a cosy, home-made feel, like a bad family video. A bloke with a stuck on Elgar mustache and no acting ability rode up and down Malvern hills on a bike (quite easy to do a period film if all you do is shots of countryside - even so there are glimpses of the Worcester bypass in the background). The various women in Elgar's life (or rather Ken's, as most seem to be related to him) made fleeting appearances, but fortunately none was given many lines to deliver, as they might have found this difficult apparently never having acted before. Elgar's secret beloved spent rather too much of the film dancing around in gauzy material nearly covering her chest, which kept slipping so that she needed to pull it back up. Worst of all were the random interludes of small girls dancing round the woods as fairies (personally I wasn't aware of Elgar's fairy fetish but maybe Ken knows better?). Anyway the film was another unique contribution by the master.

I, Curmudgeon (2004)

Director:
Alan Zweig

IMDB

Review:
In this often very funny enquiry into crankiness, Toronto filmmaker Alan Zweig interviews notable curmudgeons like Fran Lebowitz, Harvey Pekar and Bruce LaBruce. Zweig wants to know what their frickin' problem is and, more importantly, whether it's the same as his. As in Vinyl, his equally irascible doc on record collectors, the endearingly dour filmmaker spends much of I, Curmudgeon spilling his guts directly to his camera and torturing himself with big questions that he can never answer satisfactorily. Zweig then confronts his subjects with the same questions, thereby making them even grouchier. (How grouchy? Andy Rooney is moved to kick Zweig out of his office.) Though I, Curmudgeon's meandering structure and incessant jump-cuts are irritants, they're also appropriate to the movie's abrasive, anti-social personality. Consider this a testament to the power of negative thinking.

Trumbo (2007)

Director:
Peter Askin

IMDB

Review:
He was Hollywood's greatest screenwriter. His words still resonate today. He defied a committee, he defied the system. They took his honor. They took his freedom. So Dalton Trumbo went to war. But the ending could only be written by him.

Sherman's March (1986)

Director:
Ross McElwee

IMDB

Review:
Ross McElwee sets out to make a documentary about the lingering effects of General Sherman's march of destruction through the South during the Civil War, but is continually sidetracked by women who come and go in his life, his recurring dreams of nuclear holocaust, and Burt Reynolds. It was awarded the Grand Jury prize in the at the 1987 Sundance Film Festival, and in 2000, was selected for preservation in the U.S. National Film Registry.

The True Meaning of Pictures: Shelby Lee Adams' Appalachia (2002)

Director:
Jennifer Baichwal

IMDB

Review:
A film about the fine line between art, ethnography, and exploitation, The True Meaning of Pictures explores the work of photographer Shelby Lee Adams. His work is both technically proficient and artistically resonant, but because it features images of poor residents of Appalachian hollers, some have decried it as manipulative or exploitative.  Director Jennifer Baichwal gives everyone a voice, from the residents in the photographs (including several mentally retarded individuals as well as a venom-drinking Pentecostal snake-handler who is proud of his scars) to Adams himself, and from outraged family members of those in the photos to art critics who respect the abrasive and problematic nature of the work. The title, of course, begs to start an argument. What do these pictures actually mean, and isn't the "true" meaning more in the beholder than in the subject?  A work that appreciates the complexities of the issue of representation and questions the idea of rights to self-representation. After all, when a man in one of these photos chooses to hold out a knife because he is personally proud of his new knife, does the provocative proximity of this knife to his mentally-disabled son imply more than pride of possession? Of course, but to what end? Who gains and who loses? The film leaves this question elegantly open-ended.

Exit Through the Gift Shop (2010)

Director:
Brit Banksy

IMDB

Review:
Los Angeles based Frenchman Thierry Guetta gets the idea that he would like to film street artists in the process of creating their work. He tells them that he is making a documentary, when in reality he has no intention of editing the footage into one cohesive movie. Unaware of this latter fact, many street artists from around the world agree to participate. Thierry even gets into the act by assisting them in creating the art. One of the artists that participates is the camera-shy Brit Banksy, who refuses to be shown on screen unless he is blacked out. Banksy does convince Thierry to use the footage to make a movie. In Thierry doing so, Banksy comes to the realization that Thierry is a lousy filmmaker, but he is an interesting character in an odd yet appealing way. So Banksy decides to use the footage and add additional material to make his own movie about Thierry's journey in this project.

Holes in Heaven (1998)

Director:
Wendy Robbins

IMDB

Review:
The late Carl Sagan said (which is related to this documentary) “We’ve arranged a global civilization in which most crucial elements profoundly depend on science and technology. We’ve also arranged things so that almost no one understands science or technology. We might get away with it for a while, but sooner or later, this combustible mixture of ignorance and power is going to blow up in our faces”. This documentary film poses the question: Are we making Holes in Heaven? HAARP (High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program) is a controversial high frequency radio transmitter, or “ionospheric heater,” which is believed to be descended from the works of Nikola Tesla and is operated by the U.S. Navy/Air Force and Phillip Laboratories in remote Gakona, Alaska.  Using HAARP, the military can focus a billion-watt pulsed radio beam into our upper atmosphere, ostensibly for ionospheric research. This procedure will form extremely low frequency waves and send them back to the Earth, enhancing communications with submarines and allowing us to “see” into the Earth, detecting anything from oil reserves to underground missile silos.  However, several researchers claim HAARP poses many dangers, including blowing thirty-mile holes in the Earth’s upper atmosphere. They also warn of possible disruption of the subtle magnetic energies of our Earth and ourselves. Holes in Heaven? is a prime example of grassroots filmmaking by producer Paula Randol-Smith and Emmy-winning director Wendy Robbins. Narrated by Martin Sheen, the documentary, investigates HAARP, its history and implications, and examines the dangers and benefits of high and low frequencies and of electromagnetic technology.

The Pregnant Man (2008)

Director:
Elizabeth Mcdonald

IMDB

Review:
This Documentary reveals the Pregnant life of Thomas Beatie (the worlds first pregnant Man), with never been seen video footage, includes interviews with the couple and Oregon State Residents, along with there own personal home videos from their home life to her Delivery at the hospital.  When asked whether he considers himself gay when he met with Nancy — his wife now, Thomas said they were a normal couple although perceived by others as lesbians. “I lived my life as a woman at that point. Legally, I was female. But inside I still felt male. So the way other people perceived us, they saw us as a lesbian couple,” Thomas said. He said they could have normal kind of intercourse after reassignment surgery and hormone treatment. The pregnant man said they have legal problems with their first baby’s birth certificate. “I filled it out as me father, Nancy mother, and they changed it last minute, and they put her as father and me as mother. And then they changed it again and put us as parents. We’re not a same-sex marriage. We’re legal man and wife,” said Thomas.

Hoop Dreams (1994)

Director:
Steve James

IMDB

Review:
Originally intended to be a 30-minute short produced for the Public Broadcasting Service, it eventually led to five years of filming and 250 hours of footage. The film follows William Gates and Arthur Agee, two African-American teenagers who are recruited by St. Joseph High School in Westchester, Illinois, a predominantly white high school with an outstanding basketball program. Taking 90-minute commutes to school, enduring long and difficult workouts and practices, and acclimating to a foreign social environment, Gates and Agee struggle to improve their athletic skills in a job market with heavy competition. Along the way, their families celebrate their successes and support each other during times of hardship. The film raises a number of issues concerning race, class, economic division, education and values in contemporary America. It also offers one of the most intimate views of inner-city life to be captured on film. Yet it is also the human story of two young men, their two families and their community, and the joys and struggles they live through over a period of five years.

The House Is Black (1963)

Director:
Forugh Farrokhzad

IMDB

Review:
The House is Black, written, directed and edited in 1963 by Forugh Farrokhzad is a brilliant piece of work done on an issue that has hardly been portrayed in any kind of film, fiction or non. Filmed in B&W on location somewhere on a Middle Eastern island, the film portrays a rapid series of events during the everyday lives of all of its inhabitants that are suffering from various stages of leprosy.