Heavy Metal Parking Lot is a delicious slice of 1980's life. Filmed in the parking lot of a 1986 Judas Priest/Dokken concert. A collection of misfits and burnouts that has never been matched on film. There are so many classic lines. How many other 20-year-old, 16 minute documentaries do you and your friends still quote? None. Only this one. This film is a piece of history and belongs in the Smithsonian.

There are so many memorable characters crammed into such a short amount of time. The 20-year-old dude with the 13-year-old girlfriend, a burnout/redneck staple. The dude in the DC 101 shirt is possibly the most coherent cat in this film: "Priest is the best man!" I love this exchange between the filmmakers and one of the groupies: "Are you fucked up?" "Half and half." The guy in the tiger stripe outfit, that hates punk rock, pure awesomeness. The long pan of everyone lined up is an overload on the senses, you could spend hours dissecting the cast of drunk metalheads frame by frame.

As a child of the 80's these were the guys that I grew up idolizing. By the time I was old enough to go to heavy metal concerts, it was the awkward phase between metal and alt. rock, when Nirvana was just blossoming, and these guys were being phased out. So I never experienced anything like this parking lot. Thanks to this film, I feel like I lived it.

Now on Hulu!

I meant to review Hearts of Darkness a couple months back, but it got lost among all my other postponed reviews somewhere. It's been too long for me to remember it with enough detail to review it fully. It's an excellent documentary, whether you care about the making of Apocalypse Now or not. It's a fascinating insight into Francis Ford Coppola's creative process and the great depths, emotionally and psychically, that he goes to achieve his lofty goals. There's great insider footage of Francis, Martin Sheen, Lawrence Fishburne, Dennis Hopper and Robert Duvall, among others. And some good interviews with Francis' film-making buddies, George Lucas and John Milius. A truly excellent film. - Grade: A

The opening minutes of Hearts of Darkness:

One of only two films I got the chance to see at the excellent Ashland Film Festival. (Outsourced being the other.) Even though I'm a fan of documentaries, I usually skip them in the theater, I absorb them better at home. And since so many of them are about difficult issues, I don't feel like paying full price to get depressed. This was a different situation, after Taxi to the Dark Side won an Oscar as best documentary, I felt I must see it as soon as possible.

Filmmaker Alex Gibney is quickly proving himself to be one of the best documentary directors around, after this and Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room. His next film Gonzo, about the life of Hunter S. Thompson, looks very entertaining, and takes on a much lighter subject, while also tackling some political issues.

I won't write a long review for this, because if I start writing too much, I'll probably get into some kind of political diatribe that'll leave us all upset. Taxi to the Dark Side covers in great detail the U.S.'s involvement in torture during the Iraq war. From all the photos we're all familiar with from Guantanamo Bay, to Bush's administration changing our countries torture policies. They talk to former prisoners who experienced the torture, they talk to the guys that administered the torture, all the way up to those that developed the methods used. I don't think they left a stone unturned about this issue.

After I felt sick to belong to the human race, and even worse to be a citizen of a country that believes these policies are just. These practices must stop, I believe the film proves that torture does not work. There are more effective ways to gain the necessary information, and not break the laws of the Constitution and Geneva Convention in the process. Taxi to the Dark Side, is extremely well made and informative; ultimately it is not a pleasant experience, but it is a must see. - Grade: B+

It doesn't seem that long ago that Reality Television was a novel concept. Now it is a fact of life. It isn't going anywhere, it's cheap to produce, the ratings continue to remain high, and there is a never ending supply of people desperate for a taste of fame, no matter what the cost or the amount of humiliation they have to endure. That's the idea behind, American Cannibal; just how far are people willing to go, will they eat human flesh? And who are the people willing to create it?

Gil Ripley and Dave Roberts are a pair of TV writers, who've had a little success, but have yet to hit it big. They don't want to demean themselves with reality television, they think it's below them, but since nothing else seems to be working, and their manager has suggested it may be a way to get their name out there, they're willing to try anything. They've got a couple of pretty far out there ideas; like Virgin Territory a show full of virgins, who are put to the test with a constant barrage of sexual imagery, and whoever can go the longest without masturbating, gets to lose their virginity to a porn star. They're selling their ideas to anyone that'll listen. Eventually they work their way down to porn producer Kevin Blatt, who is most famous for promoting the Paris Hilton sex tape; he's hoping to go mainstream with a reality TV show, and surprisingly doesn't bite on the virgin show (I guess he has in the meantime), instead goes for something Gil and Dave kind of make up on the spot.

It's a show called The Ultimate, Ultimate Challenge, terrible name, lame idea; but he's willing to put the money up to produce it. The concept of the show is to starve people, while they live on an island where cannibalism is still legal, and also compete in Survivor type challenges. Watching the casting process for this show is amazing, it is pathetic to watch people grovel, just for the chance at this no-name show. Once the cameras are rolling on the real contestants, it's interesting to see how manipulated these type of shows really are. Something horrible happens while the show is shooting, they it a mystery as to what happened before and after, with no real conclusion as to what actually went down. I'm not sure if the whole thing was manipulated by the filmmakers, or if they're being vague on for entertainment purposes.

I wrote a blog on The Turning Point Myspace page about a year back, complaining about all the film festival rejections we were racking up. Chris Suchorsky posted a comment about keeping my head up. I contacted him and thanked him for his optimism; what came of it was me reviewing his very good documentary Golden Days. Looking into his past a bit, I noticed he had also made a short documentary called Failure. I asked him if he could lend me a copy, so here we are.

Failure, was what came out of Chris trying to make his first feature film. Going into it, he was very naive; believing he could shoot a 95 page script in 6 days, with unfamiliar rented equipment, slacker friends to star in it, and no one behind the camera but him. What followed was a quick devolution into chaos; first he couldn't figure out how to properly use the camera, next his friends couldn't keep a straight-face or be reliable for more than a few minutes at a time, and he quickly learned when you're not paying somebody they're not likely to show up on time. After the week, he was barely able to scrape a scene together, let alone an entire film.

He sat on the footage for a while, thinking it was a complete waste. But then the brilliant idea came to him of turning the mess into a documentary, which he proves to have a talent for. He creates an entertaining and enlightening story out of his film's collapse and the hysterically bad footage he was able to get. I think that any amateur who sets out to make a film, should watch Failure first; get a feel for just how many things can go wrong. Anyone with an interest in filmmaking will enjoy it as well, and learn a little more about how difficult filmmaking can be; it's a quick watch at 30 minutes, and it plays often on IFC. - Grade: B

For more information about the film: Official Failure Website

I don't have a lot to say about this film, and if I ever want to catch up on my reviews, I'm going to have to shorten a few here and there. I enjoyed this documentary about the MPAA, it's well made and entertaining. I think some of their rating practices are pretty ridiculous, and there need to be some serious changes made. Especially the way that violence gets a pass, while sex is considered the most evil thing ever; and the fact that they treat studio movies with kid gloves, while being particularly harsh on independent films. There needs to be steady and even rules for every film.

But honestly even as a filmmaker, it didn't get my ire up. There are too many other, much bigger problems in the world to truly care about than this. I commend Kirby Dick (who directed the cult-documentary Sick) for tackling the idea and making an entertaining film out of the subject. I particularly liked the bit, where he split screen clips of gay and straight sex scenes, commenting on how they were shot pretty much the same, but how the gay scenes were all rated NC-17, while the straight sex got R's. If you have any interest in knowing how films are rated, this is a documentary worth watching; plus there are a lot of great film clips included. - Grade: B-

The Independent Film Channel has become my saving grace for documentaries. I enjoy watching them, but they're very hit or miss, so I often don't want to waste a rental. This way I can DVR as many as I want and check them out at my leisure, and if they're not up to snuff, erase them. I've known for a while that I wanted to see Darkon, I first heard about it when it won the Audience Choice Award at SXSW.

I've never had an interest in any kind of role-playing games, I didn't play Dungeons and Dragons as a kid; but I can appreciate the fascination. Escaping into a make-believe world, inventing a new life for yourself, it sounds tempting, especially for those of us that don't quite fit in. LARPing, or Live Action Role Playing, is a little more involved; kind of like D&D meets a Renaissance Fair. I knew a couple of guys that played when I worked at an Internet company in Seattle, but again, I never had any interest;, too geeky for even for me. Through Darkon I got a good understanding of what it's all about.

The film starts out like a bad Lord of the Rings knock-off, with a group of guys in half-decent costumes standing around a fire, badly acting out some fantasy jargon about how so-and-so must be destroyed. We soon learn that these are the players of Darkon; a make-believe land run by a large group of people in the suburbs of Baltimore. There are thousands of players, each with their own role, from King to peasants; they fully immerse themselves into this fantasy. The film introduces a quite a few of them, most of them too briefly, and they all say about the same thing; they do it to escape from the dulldrum of their real lives.

Skip Lipman is the star of the film; he probably speaks well as an everyman of Darkon. Inside the game he has great ambitions; he's worked his way up through the game's ranks, becoming the leader of a large group, but still had to take orders. So he took his minions and broke off to form his own faction; which is now battling for supremacy of the land. At home, he's the stay-at-home father of a young boy and girl; it's not a terrible existence, but it's not everything that this American lifestyle taught him to dream for. The other main character is Daniel McArthur, a married businessman, who is who Skip hopes to overthrow as ultimate leader.

Mostly it is all an excuse to hit each other with large foam swords; which there is a lot of. Sure the players take some time out to make up fantastical back stories, trade fake-money for fake magical items and draw up political agendas; but mostly they want to whack each other to ten-minute-deaths. And boy do they! The filmmakers of Darkon go to great lengths to capture these epic struggles; using nearly every trick you'd find in a Hollywood production, from sweeping helicopter shots to right in-your-face hand-held fight photography. There's even an epic fantasy score to back it all up; you could almost take it seriously if they weren't fighting with PVC pipes wrapped in foam, and if the soccer goals in the background didn't keep popping into frame.

There are too many battles in the film, too many guys falling bloodlessly to the ground, it begins to grow tiresome; they don't and can't have the impact of Gladiator or Braveheart and after the little we've learned about the game, I ultimately didn't care who won or lost. The filmmakers could have set it up as a battle between good and evil, making us really root for one side over the other, but we've learned to like both the main characters; there's no Billy Mitchell to root against.

Instead I think they should have focused a bit more on the people of Darkon. I liked hearing from these self-proclaimed nerds, geeks and dweebs, about how they have so much trouble fitting into the real world; how Darkon makes them feel comfortable, that they're able to talk to girls, able to assert themselves. That is the true power of the game. Darkon is a fairly good documentary, it's entertaining and some-what enlightening; it celebrates the players, instead of making fun of them, but like the weapons and players of Darkon, it feels padded.

I recorded this from IFC, not knowing what it was. From the brief description I thought it was a documentary, and still was buying into it for a couple of minutes, though I was growing a little skeptical. The jig was up at about five minutes in, when I recognized Jack Kehler, a character actor who I knew as the Dude's landlord from The Big Lebowski. That's not to say I didn't enjoy the film. I appreciate that they're trying to blur the line between fact and fiction. It's made in a way that might be convincing enough to work for those that haven't seen 10,000 movies; and don't remember almost every actors face.

The film opens with Michael Connor addressing the camera, asking the viewer to help him find his ex-girlfriend Grace. The acting and home video look is convincingly low-budget enough to make you believe that his plea is real. He begins by introducing himself and his cohorts behind the camera; a cutesy way to get you to buy into their amateur status. He shows us around his life; his job at a shoe store and his usual hangout, a coffee shop, where the aforementioned Jack Kehler hangs out as well.

It's obviously not enough to hang a feature film on, so that's where they come up with the fun idea of having an actress friend of his to play Grace and act out the important moments of their relationship. Nadia Dajani, who I also recognized immediately for being in a variety of things, plays Nadia, who plays Grace. As actors, Michael and Nadia have a good chemistry together, with a lot of playful bickering; she bitches about his lousy script-writing, laughing and then commiserating about the stupid things he did during his time together with the real Grace. And it's through their replaying of the relationship, that he realizes the reasons that Grace may have left. I don't want to give too much away, it's a fun film to discover on your own; they come up with some creative ways to play with the reality of films.

It's extremely hard to make films on no budget, so any way that filmmaker's can explore new ideas, is endearing in my world. Writer/director Michael A. Nickles came up with brilliant idea to sell the cheap photography, real-life locations and guerrilla film-making tactics and make it work for the film, not against it; while also making a funny and entertaining movie. It is nowhere near as slick as most romantic-comedies, but what it lacks in production values, it more than makes up for with originality. This Is Not A Film is for those of us looking for something different.

THIS IS NOT A FILM

The amazing thing about a good documentary, is it can make the most trivial of subjects seem hugely important. While watching The King of Kong, I found myself getting very involved, annoyed, upset and satisfied while watching two middle-aged guys battle it out for the right to call themselves the best Donkey Kong player in the world. When my wife who was sitting on the couch with me, but not really watching the movie, asked me what it was about, she thought it was about the stupidest idea for a film she'd ever heard; but I caught her getting ever so slightly in to it over the top of her laptop. Me, who grew up with video games, who worshiped over the shoulders of the best players on the block; I'm ready to call it my all time favorite documentary. At the very least, the most entertaining documentary I've ever seen.

I think what pulled me in was the classic battle between the champ and the under-dog. I could easily identify with Steve Wiebe, he's like most of us, good at a variety of things, but he's never been good enough to be called the best. It's something each of us strives for in life, to be the very best at something, and to be recognized for it. So what if Steve's dream involves a bunch of outdated digital characters; his dream is to be the world recorder holder for Donkey Kong, and I want to see him achieve that dream.

Standing in his way is Billy Mitchell. Now whether or not Billy is as big of a jerk as he comes across in the film is debatable, but for the sake of cinema, the filmmakers behind The King of Kong set him up to be the perfect villain for Steve to overcome. He's been the reigning champ of Donkey Kong since the early 80's, when Time magazine held a competition between the self-acclaimed-greatest video game players in the world. Billy set himself apart then, and is still the gold standard now.

He's become a sort of god among the geeks of the classic video game world. At the center of this universe is Twin Galaxies, they've been keeping track of the best video game players, long before there was the Internet. Everyone at Twin Galaxies knows and respects Billy; they covet his game playing skills and his well coiffed mullet. So when Steve Wiebe shows up out of nowhere with a video tape of him beating the Donkey Kong world record on his home machine, their universe is torn asunder. Who is this guy? Where did he come from? And how can we take his record down?

Soon officials are crawling all over his Seattle house, taking his machine apart, and finally declaring him disqualified. It's disheartening to see Steve's dream fall apart so easily, but there's much more to come, I've only covered the first act of the film. What follows is more fascinating and exciting than most Hollywood action films. First Steve must prove himself worthy and travels to great lengths to do so, meeting many a strange character along his path, and in the end he must overthrow an evil king.

The King of Kong is a stupendous achievement. It takes this little known faction of the world and makes it endlessly entertaining, they go to great lengths to make us care about Donkey Kong, bringing in all kinds of experts explaining how it might be the toughest video game on the planet. More importantly they give us a hero to cheer for and a villain to hate, a fulfilling character arc, and leave us with questions and arguments to debate within ourselves. It couldn't have turned out better if the story had been scripted from the beginning.

Director Seth Gordon bursts on to the scene, and from the looks of it has turned his good fortune into a Hollywood romantic-comedy called Four Christmases starring Vince Vaughn and Reese Witherspoon. Which is a little disappointing, I'd rather see him take on something more challenging, another documentary maybe, but you have to strike while the iron's hot. And the film remains to be seen, maybe it too will be wonderful. For now, I'm a big fan.

Going into Rize I really had no interest in the art of krumping. The sole reason I watched this film is for it's director David LaChapelle, who is my favorite photographer. His style wasn't very apparent in this film, it has a the same DV look that most of today's documentaries share. There is one scene, where he took a few of the dancers down to the L.A. river and set up his lights, that made it look a little more like his photographic style; but that's obviously not what he was going for with this film, he wanted to tell these kids story.

Despite not being into this high energy dancing at the beginning, I really began to appreciate the skill that goes into this crazy dance form. I'm sure I'd have a headache or throw out my back about 30 seconds into trying it for myself. But even more than appreciating their skills, I was glad to see this as an alternative for kids growing up in very tough situations, where gang life is an easy choice. I'm glad that there are people out there like Tommy the Clown, that dedicate their lives to helping kids and making their neighborhoods a better place to live. The world needs more people like this.

That said, I didn't think there was enough material here for a feature documentary; it could have been an amazing short, but wouldn't have got the same exposure. It's kind of a catch-22. I felt like the film kept telling the same story over and over. And they filled the other half with dancing footage. I liked seeing the history of the dance, meeting some of the main people involved, and I thought that it was interesting when they cut the footage against some traditional tribe dancing from Africa. But there was really only about 30 minutes of story, stretched into over 90.

If you're into krumping, I'm sure you've already seen Rize, and I'm glad that there is a film representing this new movement. But as an outsider, I began to get bored. If you're an outsider like me, and you can catch the first 30 minutes on cable somewhere, it's worth seeing that much of it, after that not much else is developed. It was interesting to see LaChapelle's work behind a movie camera, he shows some promise with this film, I'll be interested in seeing whatever he comes up with next.

This is a film I believe every American should see. While a lot of folks don't agree with Michael Moore's politics, I think that most everybody can agree that our health care system is in serious trouble.

While 50 million Americans go without health insurance, because it has become so unaffordable, I think it was wonderful that he focuses his attention on those that do have it. We see how callous the insurance companies are, that they have little to no interest in actually taking care of their customers, are simply focused on the bottom line, no matter how many people suffer and die because of their treatment. It's disgusting how they refuse treatment to their own customers, because their illnesses are too expensive; how they employ detectives to hunt down the slightest infringement so they can do so. There's a woman who's coverage is denied because she had a yeast infection... are they serious?! This is legal?

I think that Moore overstates the wonderfulness of the universal health care that other countries receive. But I believe that they are much closer to a real solution then America is. It really shows something, that we are the only country in Western Civilization that doesn't have some kind of universal health care. We're not going to turn into a communist country, just because we have social medicine!

I myself have no health insurance, because I haven't been injured or seriously sick for my entire life, and can't really afford the extra $300 or more a month, for a "just in case". But it's also something that terrifies me, because if I was to get injured or sick, I know it could ruin my family's life. After seeing this film, I plan on looking into getting some, because I'd hate to come up with some preexisting condition, that excuses my insurance company from paying for any treatment. I think it's an absolutely ridiculous situation, that if I was born with some kind of disease, that I would never get an insurance company to get to pay for those bills. What's the point?

It's also a scary thought, that when I get older and if I get cancer or some other serious disease, that even with insurance the bills will be so expensive that it could destroy everything that I worked my entire life towards. That was one of the most heartbreaking scenes in Sicko, when the older couple is forced to move in with their daughter because their medical bills have bankrupt them, here's a couple that has worked their entire lives, done their part of the "American Life" and they get it all taken away because they had the misfortune of getting sick. That terrifies me.

Something needs to change. No citizen of the richest country in the world, should go without medical care. More people are homeless because of medical bills than any other reason, so don't go thinking that they're being a bunch of "free-loaders", there would be a lot less of them if the health care system hadn't put them there. And Those of us that aren't millionaires shouldn't live in terror of our medical bills.

Sadly, I don't think anything will ever happen. The political system is far too corrupt. Thanks to political contributions, our politicians serve the corporations, not the American citizen. They will never change a system that turns over billions in profit.

Really, I'm just waiting out the days until the entire system collapses. Our future has been mortgaged away from us and future generations. Something, everything, needs to change drastically and in the immediate future or the U.S.A. won't be on top for much longer. And I just don't see that happening. The rich are all too happy to take and take, while the rest of the world suffers.

(Sorry to go off on a rant like this in an entertainment based blog, but once I get started it's hard to stop.)

Watch this video below and see just how much trouble we're really in.

This review is going to come across as some sort of jealous rant, for the most part it probably is. But I just don't understand how 51 Birch Street is so much better than my own film The Turning Point. It seems like one well known critic attaches themselves to a film and it makes the film, other critics join in, and the film winds up on year end top ten lists and picked up by HBO. While, my own film, another homemade family documentary, which I believe is just as well made, can barely get into the smallest of film festivals.

That's not a knock against this film, it is a well done personal documentary. After his mother dies, filmmaker Doug Block takes a journey into his family's past. He learns about who his parents really were and are. His father was in love with another woman, who he soon marries and moves to Florida with. He finds out his mother was a writer and that she kept a journal for much of her life. He follows the clues of the diary to much greater understanding of his family's life.

It's a very interesting personal journey that makes you wonder what you don't know about your own parents. It's something that I think most of us probably take for granted, that our parents had lives before we came along. Hopes, dreams, and love lives that we never knew about.

I'm happy for filmmaker Doug Block, who runs my favorite documentary website The D-Word. He's a talented filmmaker, and he deserves the attention; it'll help him get films made more easily in the future. And I'm interested in seeing more of his stories.

For now I'm jealous, I hope my film can gain half the attention his did.

This trailer hypnotised me the first time I saw it. I love the Golden Gate Bridge. San Fransisco is the only city I regurally visited the first 18 years of my life. I loved it as a kid and it will always remain my favorite bridge in the world. I've also had a fascination with death most of my life and suicide in particular. How life could get so bad that you would want to end it.

If The Bridge had played in a theater near me, I would have made the rare trip to see a documentary outside of a film festival. When it came out on DVD, it wasn't available in our local store, and it took forever to get to me from Blockbuster.com.

The film is gorgeous. I've been all over San Fransisco, it was wonderful to see the city and the bridge from so many different angles. There are hundreds of different shots of the bridge from nearly every point that it's viewable from. So if you don't care about the Golden Gate Bridge, the film will might get boring for you. However, that's just the icing on the cake.

The meat of the film is about suicide and how it touches people. Filmmaker Eric Steel and his team took one year to film the bridge and all the people that jumped off it. It's the number one place in the world for commiting suicide. There is a mystical draw to the bridge and the long, long drop to the icy water below. Talking with many of the relatives and friends of suicide victims from the year, we learn about each of these folks in who they were in life and what may have drove them to their death.

This film is not for the squeimish. There are quite a few shots of people in the last moments in their life, before they take the plunge. It's shocking to watch, nothing graphic is seen, it's all in your head and your point of view on how it must feel. The best part of the film is the incredible story of Kevin Hines and how he made the jump and survived.

It's an extremely fascinating film.

Documentaries about rock bands, or rockumentaries (a term I'm not crazy about), depend greatly on one thing and that is of course the band. There are basically three ways to go; film an established band, with a built-in fan base and tell their history, which doesn't always make for a great film, mostly they're about the concert footage. Find an up-and-coming band and capture their rise to popularity; and your film will be a "we were there then." The third and usually the most interesting, at least story-wise, is to find an up-and-coming band and capture the struggle to become known, between art and commerce, and to stay who you truly are. You'll find Golden Days a film about the Brooklyn band The Damnwells in the third category, with some hope for the second somewhere in the future.

In 2001, the Brooklyn band The Strokes were lighting up the music world and record labels were swarming New York looking for new rock bands to sign. And despite being together for a short time, and not having a large fan base, The Damnwells were recognized as a talented band and there was talk of them getting a deal. But ultimately nothing came to pass. A few years later, the band has toured with the likes of Cheap Trick, and are about to release their independent CD Bastards of the Beat when Epic Records swoops in to release the album and signs them to record more music. The world is their oyster.

At the heart of the band is Alex Dezen, lead singer, songwriter and guitarist. He's had theatrics in his heart since he was a small child, performing with traveling plays since he was very little, even appearing in The Professional in a cameo with Natalie Portman. After writing some songs he liked; he didn't want his dream of being a rock star to fade away, he quit his steady job and quickly built a band with friends and acquaintances; they practiced and recorded their first album in an unheated storage unit; a fairly typical story for a struggling band. The film introduces all the band members; Ted Hudson, the bassist and old friend of Alex's gets the second most screen time. But Golden Days is told mostly from Alex's point of view. Which is understandable, he lives and breathes for the band; the others seem more in it for the fun of it, and in the case of the lead guitarist as a way to make some money and maybe a name for himself.

Months overdue, Alex is putting the finishing touches the album; his band is spread around the country, off on their own because they haven't been given any money to live on; the release date is weeks away. It seems that they will soon be enjoying the fruits of their labor. That's when the bombshell is dropped; Epic is no longer releasing the album. To make matters worse The Damnwells owe them $300,000 in studio fees if they want the rights to their own record back. Corporate America had officially taken a shit on some more starving artists.

What does the band do? Should they get back together? Release the album on their own? The film follows the band for about another year, answering these questions and more. This is where the film really thrives, it becomes something different, we learn much more about who Alex really is; that he's not just another kid chasing fame and pussy through rock n' roll. The perseverance The Damnwells have after the collapse of their dream is amazing. It shows that a band doesn't have to sell-out to "make it". The passion of artists is a finicky thing; some thrive in the limelight, others in obscurity. Golden Days is a tale of a band not becoming the next-best-thing and are possibly better off because of it.

This is the second documentary about artist perseverance by director Chris Suchorsky; the first being about his own. Failure came together after his first scripted feature had fallen apart and he decided to turn the experience into a documentary, it eventually got picked up by IFC. Chris met Alex through a mutual friend and directed their first music video. The film took off when The Damnwells were picked up by Epic and Alex thought that their story would make a good film. Which it did, but not in the way they were expecting.

The other thing that documentaries about rock bands greatly rely on is how much you enjoy the music. I personally liked The Damnwells, they have a good indie-rock sound. Of course their music plays non-stop throughout the film, but it never devolves into a music video and the concerts and recording sessions are kept short, moving the story along, not used as filler; which a lot of films of this type do. I would recommend Golden Days to those who enjoyed the film Dig!; similar styles of music, with more accessible characters. The film won best documentary at the Phoenix Film Festival and continues to play festivals around the country. If you're an artist or a fan of indie-rock this film is fun lesson in how you shouldn't let The Man get you down; that if you're simply in it for the money you shouldn't be doing it. Make art, music, films, whatever, for yourself.

Frank & Cindy the namesakes of the film, are living the very definition of a love/hate relationship; emphasis on the hate. But something keeps them together. When they're not yelling at each other about how much they loath one another, you can see there is some genuine affection. It's hidden somewhere deep down beneath the fighting, the accusations, the lying, and the name-calling. It wasn't a model relationship for a child to grow-up under.

Where most kids would become messed up themselves or at least have the good sense to put that part of their life behind them; filmmaker G.J. Echternkamp documents his mother and step-father's life to share with the world. "Convinced that my parents are a cinematic goldmine, I plan to film them for about a year." It is an extremely bold move, an odd human case study; but he's right, and he strikes gold with this homemade documentary. His parents are consistently entertaining and thought provoking in their dysfunction.

Early in life Frank Garcia had a brief flirtation with fame, while still a teenager he played bass in the 80's band OXO, that had a Top 40 hit with Whirly Girl They opened for Hall and Oats and made appearances on shows like American Bandstand. It was his brief moment in the sun, and like most one-hit-wonders, they were quickly forgotten.

On the tail end of his stint as a minor celebrity, he met Cynthia Brown, and despite her being twenty years his senior, the two quickly married. "I thought I'd married a rock star," Cindy confesses to her son's camera. She figured she was getting a free ride on the fame express, but after reality crashed down, she ended up supporting her husband's failing musical aspirations for the next two decades. She worked as a receptionist, while Frank got drunk and played around in his home studio, creating music nobody would ever hear.

Frank & Cindy starts out as a caricature. The hilariously over-the-top 80's clips of OXO is the film's introduction to Frank. After that he's painted by Cindy as a burnt-out, fat-buffoon with no motivation to make something of himself. Cindy is portrayed as a pathetic-liar with big dreams and no real plans on how to get there; she's constantly talking about getting her teeth fixed so she'll be able to get a job in Hollywood, it's easy to see how deluded she is. They're both middle-age-adults, past their prime, but stuck in adolescence, both users, using each other as an excuse to go nowhere.

G.J. sets his parents up as these ugly beings, we're repulsed, yet so fascinated that we can't look away. Through the course of the film, we learn to love these two. Despite all their faults, and there are many, deep down they are good people. They want the best for their son, have made sacrifices and tried hard to give him a good life. Through a combination of bad choices and bad luck they've come to where they are. Most people have big dreams, and when you take the wrong path it can sometimes lead to catastrophes that take a lifetime to recover from. They want to be better people, but life has beaten them down and they no longer have the drive to change. It's easy to put yourself in their shoes.

With relaxed filming techniques, where you're put right in the middle of everything, sometimes haphazardly; edited together with simple jump-cuts, that never beg for attention, just small slices of video-taped memory; makes it feels like you're living right there with them. It seems easy, but a lot of hard work and attention to detail went into creating this wonderful little documentary.

Entering his 30's, still living at home, and struggling with his own dreams of becoming a filmmaker, G.J. may have seen Frank and Cindy as a somewhat easy undertaking, something he could use to kick-start his career; which he hints at. But it must have been cathartic as well, to step back and see his family from another angle. He's taken the tough part of his life and turned it into art. Dysfunctional as they are, the film is a love letter to his parents.

I'd heard good things about Arctic Son, and wanted to see it when it played the 2007 Ashland Independent Film Festival, but I never got a chance. Thanks to PBS and their wonderful documentary series P.O.V., I didn't have to wait till the film is barely released on DVD and then the long wait in my queue to see it.

"Before enlightenment, chop and carry wood. After enlightenment, chop and carry wood." - Wu Li

Stan Jr. the subject of Artic Son wouldn't have understood and probably would have laughed at this quote (which opens the film) before his life changing journey; which was captured by filmmaker Andrew Walton. Afterwards it would be something to live his life by, though he would never admit to it. Stan Jr. is like a lot of disillusioned young men in this country, he has no motivations beyond where to find his next drink or high. He's a decent artist, but it's not something he yearns to be, only something to pass the time or pick up girls with. Living with his mother in Seattle, he has no ambitions to change himself for the better. His father Stan Sr. is upset by his son's behavior, so he brings him to live with him in the extremely isolated town of Old Crow in the Canadian Yukon.

Coming from a big city, of course the small, mostly native community is a major culture shock for Jr. But this isn't a simple fish-out-of-water story; it goes deeper than that, not going for the easy confrontations. With nowhere to go for entertainment, no bars to get drunk in, nothing to do but live an off-the-land life; Jr. is soon rebelling against father. Sr. is patient with him; letting him detox from his aimless lifestyle. He teaches him how to fish and hunt in the same way their elders did. They take long snowmobile rides through the untouched landscape, often stopping to repair the run-down models. It is a life that demands patience.

Slowly Stan Jr. begins to change. He still enjoys the occasional drink of his homemade beer; still has harsh words with his father about things they disagree on; still scowls and yells "fuck!" anytime something upsets him. It's not easy to see, but there has been change within him; there is a love and respect for life that wasn't there before. He is a new man. His mother calls for him to come home to Seattle and he agrees to go. This proves to be the true test of his fortitude. Will his old demons come back to haunt him?

Arctic Son is a meditative documentary; a quiet and slow film that lets you wallow in every scene. It is not a film for people with short attention spans, but if you stick with it, you'll find it more rewarding than a lot of flashier documentaries. Stan Jr. and Sr. are both extremely private people, it's a surprise that they allowed the intrusion of a film crew into their life at all. At no time do they truly open up to the filmmakers; never giving any immediate insight into what they are feeling about the situation. Everything is told through their minimal dialogue and their change of attitude towards each other; the filmmakers let their story develop naturally.

The landscape is the third character in the film. There are long sequences of mild music and beautifully photographed vistas of the frozen tundra and the few animals that inhabit this harsh world. Much time is devoted to the way the men meticulouly set fish and rabbit traps in the traditional way. The film is a love song to this old world and way of life almost as much as it is the story of two men learning how to become father and son. Artic Son is a beautiful slice of life.

Who are we? Are we the collected consciousness of our own history or something else entirely, something that may be defined as the soul? It is THE question. That's what Unknown White Male, in what is probably the best documentary of the year, tries to answer. Obviously nothing concrete is revealed, it is something that we will debate until our little monkey species vanishes of the face of the Earth, but the film sure does make you think it over.

Starting like a million Pulp stories before it; a man, with movie-star looks, wakes up one day on a subway near Coney Island, not knowing who he is. A scrap of paper with a phone number scribbled on it, found in his pocket is his first clue; it leads to the mother of an ex-girlfriend. She tells him he is Doug Bruce, an Englishman, a former-stockbroker, now retired to be a photographer, who owns a beautiful flat in New York's trendy East Village. It could be the beginning of a fun spy flick ala The Bourne Identity or a wonderful sci-fi mystery like Dark City, but this is all real.

Director Rupert Murray who was a childhood friend of Doug's, was still living in London when he heard about his affliction. Eight months after it happened, he travels to New York to meet the new Doug and start filming. The lost time is filled in with footage shot by Doug himself, a new curiosity for him, interviews with people close to him in the aftermath, and recreations of what Doug may have gone through for the first couple months of his new life.

Suffering from retrograde amnesia Doug has lost the memory of absolutely everything from his previous life. Not just who he is, but who all his friends were, the sensations of every day things, every song and movie he ever heard or saw... everything! Now, like a child, he gets to re-experience the world from a fresh perspective, but with the appreciation and senses of an adult. To see snow for the first time, to taste a fresh strawberry, to listen to the Rolling Stones and take a swim in the ocean. Director and editor Murray, with barrage of imagery and sound, does a very good job of recreating what all these millions of little things may have felt like for Doug all over again.

"Certainly he's the same man, questionably he's the same person," John Locke.

The toughest thing is not these lost experiences, it's the relationships that he's built. In the film Doug says he is more comfortable with people that didn't know him before his accident, because they don't expect anything of him. Imagine meeting your father for the first time at 34; how surreal to have that strong bond lost. All the memories of his friends and family now gone; replaced with people that recognize him, but now don't quite know who he is. Murray is there with his camera, as Doug meets a group of their old mates, now a room full of strangers; it is awkward for everybody. His reconnection with his sisters goes smoother; despite not remembering anything about their family history, Doug's natural rapport with them seems to be intact. The interesting thing is that Doug doesn't have many questions about his past.

He is happy to start over with a clean slate; he gets to reinvent himself. An old girlfriend of his confesses to liking the new Doug more. The cocky, sarcastic playboy has turned into a more sensitive and open person. His photography teacher says that his work has gained a lot of depth. Essentially, he's built a whole new world for himself. Nearly two years after his accident, he says that he's afraid of his memories coming back. He's not sure who he will be, if they do. Doug is happy with the man he has become.
Unknown White Male generally stays away from the scientific reasons of Doug's amnesia. It's explored a bit, but no official reason is ever given for Doug's malady. There's a small piece of an interview with a philosopher that adds a little to the discussion. But the film mainly focuses on Doug and those affected by it, the personal aspects. Murray moves the film along at a very quick pace, it's filled with wonderful photography, with multiple types of video playing out like memories; the washed out super-8 to the crispness of 35mm. The film's music and sound design also play a large part.

In a strange way, the weakest part of the film is Doug; he doesn't offer a lot of himself to the film. Understandably he doesn't want to bare his new self to the world. But it doesn't harm the film in any way. Doug is more a shell for the idea of this happening to you or a friend. Someone who we can explore this cinematic malady with, a person to place ourselves in. Ultimately, it is the concept and the delivery of the film that make it so satisfying.

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Originally written for my now defunct documentary column: Truth Be Told

Maybe you've heard about the film where the guy nails his dick to a board. Sick: The Life & Death of Bob Flanagan, Supermasochist is that movie. While a completely disgusting act, it is perhaps not the most difficult scene in the film to watch. Emotionally, not visually, it gets worse.

If you've seen the slightly-infamous Nine Inch Nail's banned-by-MTV, music video Happiness is Slavery, where a naked man gets poked, prodded and finally pulled apart by machines, you already know a bit about Bob Flanagan. Who is the subject of the controversial documentary Sick. Apart from the final death of Bob in that video, everything else is real. He is a self-appointed super-masochist.

With his body already ravaged by the horrendous disease cystic fibrosis; when every breath is pain, where death is right around the corner; Bob figures that he might as well enjoy a bit more pain in his life. He finds most of this through his life-partner/sadist Sheree Rose. She whips him, pierces him and forces nasty foods into his mouth. But he also performs a lot of it himself. There must be more than 100 shots of his penis in various states of torture in this film, all leading up to the piece de' resistance of a nail going directly through his cock in full view of the camera. Which may just be the nastiest thing I've ever seen on film. I watched it with my hands covering my eyes, like a little kid watching a horror film.

But Bob is doing something right with his life. At 41 he's the longest living survivor of cystic fibrosis; which fills his every organ with mucus. Two of his siblings are long gone from the same disease; most people who suffer from it don't make it out of childhood. Bob has turned it into an art, literally.

He writes songs and poems about it, performs stand-up routines centered around his suffering, bringing it right out there in the open, so people can not ignore it. In maybe his most daring piece, he puts himself on display in a museum, in a hospital bed, where people can come watch his body wreck itself live. He's not shy about a thing. His sadomasochism plays a part of his art as well; taking pictures, making videos and performing it on stage. He is the master of masochistic-mixed-media, a true original.

While he's trying to do everything to display his battle with CF for the public, he's not necessarily trying to be the poster boy for the disease. But through his art and his longevity, he has become one. He volunteers at a CF summer camp for kids, singing funny songs about the reality of their lives. The most touching scene in the film comes when, through the Make A Wish foundation, teenage sufferer Sarah Doucette pays him a visit him . She sees right through all his disgusting acts, not caring a bit about his fetishes, to the heart of the man. With her around, we get to see the tender side of Bob.

While Sick doesn't offer many explanations for Bob's tendencies, it also doesn't hold anything back. There are no experts talking about who he may be, nor is much of his personal history shown. But every method of torture is given its due, every cough is heard loud and clear and when he painfully succumbs to this terrible disease, we are there. His mom has the best explanation for the way he lived his life, "that Bob uses his whips n' chains to punish the body that has betrayed him." This 1997 film by Kirby Dick is well worth seeing, if you can get past the bits of sickness, you'll get to know a man who is very bright, funny and most of all brave.