Bounce
Who are these guys, the beefy ones standing at the gates of nightclubs and discos deciding who gets in? Are they as beautiful as the beautiful people they control? I never tire of seeing what really happens behind the scenes, or of hearing about what really goes into other peoples occupations, and with this documentary I now know more about bouncers than I thought possible. For a bit of drama, there’s an opening at a hot club, so we follow a few wannabees who hope to get the job. I was rooting for the meek giant who lived with his mom. It’s a satisfying journey into a world you often cross but never see.
— KK
Bounce: Behind the Velvet Ropes
Director: Steven Cantor
2000, 71 min.
Rent from Netflix
Available from Amazon
Silk Road
Even in Marco Polo’s time the Silk Road between Europe and China wove through vast desert wildernesses and sparsely populated steppes. It was a tough and lonely journey then, and unlike most travels in 2004, it still is a journey through grand nothingness. Because it has always been so remote, the ruins of those ancient days lay near our modern touch now. One can still find bits of silk hundreds of years old fluttering in the sand at ruins on the old road. In 1979 the Chinese government and NHK, the Japanese TV station, teamed up to make a well-financed expedition to explore the Silk Road within the Chinese borders, and the resulting documentary remains the best orientation to what remains of that ancient route. The big surprise is the extent of Buddhism in the lands we now imagine as classically Islamic. Think of those Buddhists’ statues in Afghanistan. At times this 12-hour (!) extravagant travelogue plods as slow as a Chinese propaganda movie, and the soundtrack is inexplicably scored by the new age celebrity musician Kitaro, but Central Asia is looming on the horizon as the political hot-spot of this new century, so better get your maps out as the caravan trudges along.
— KK
Silk Road
1990, 600 min.
$190, DVD (used)
Rent from GreenCine
Rent from Netflix
Available from Amazon
Brother’s Keeper
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.
$3, Amazon Instant Video rental
Read more about the film at Wikipedia
Rent from Netflix
Available from Amazon
Sing Faster
A quick look at the work of stage hands on the very elaborate set of the epic Wagner Ring Cycle opera. Stage hands are like sailors (all that rigging). These guys seem to date only ballerinas, and they endure long spells of boredom between intense physical coordination. The title of the film comes from their eternal desire to close the last act: “come on, sing faster” they mutter. The best parts of this short peek behind the scenes are the interviews where stage hands give their New Yorker street version of the convoluted plot of the Wagner operas playing endlessly around them.
— KK
Sing Faster
Directed by Jon Else
1999, 60 min.
$13, DVD
Rent from Netflix
Available from Amazon
Waco: The Rules of Engagement
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.
$20, DVD
Read more about the film at Wikipedia
Rent from Netflix
Available from Amazon
Microcosmos
It begins as a small nod to the insects in your backyard, but soon becomes a wide-opened window into a previously unknown microcosm of insect-dom. How is it possible we’ve never seen this world before with this clarity? With scarce narration this better-than-usual nature film is more poem than documentary. Works for kids. Filmed by the same Frenchman who later did Winged Migrations.
— KK
Microcosmos
Directed by Claude Nuridsany, Marie Perennou
1996, 80 min.
$25, DVD
Read more about the film at Wikipedia
Rent from Netflix
Available from Amazon
Dogtown and Z-Boys
You would not expect a documentary about the slacker origins of skateboarding culture to hold your attention for more than 10 minutes, but Dogtown and Z-boys certainly does. It unleashes a steady stream of surprises, beginning with a small band of juvenile delinquents and outcast school kids who were so downtrodden they were kicked out of good waves in Santa Monica California. They then began to surf dorky skateboards. Soon they were amusing themselves with breaking into vacant backyard swimming pools and “taking on air” with zany skateboard antics and a lot of attitude. How this small-time obsession became an international sport, entertainment and merchandising complex is the rest of this amazing and well-made story. I consider it a key document of contemporary American culture.
— KK
Dogtown and Z-Boys
Directed by Stacy Peralta
2002, 90 min.
$3, Amazon Instant Video rental
Read more about the film at Wikipedia
Rent from Netflix
Available from Amazon
Colonial House
The premise is familiar now. Send a modern family into the past and make them live with only the tools and resources available centuries ago. In this case, the modern Americans are sent to live in the summer of 1628, on a forested island off of Maine. Their task: build a new world colony (20 people strong) that can both survive and pay back its investors in England. Life is pretty grungy. Two families to a room; no outhouses. This is the third in a series of living history documentaries (see 1900 House and Frontier House) – only now they have fewer tools. Of the three programs this is the best, in part because of the reality show-like drama and bickering between the colonists. Cameras record every detail as the pudgy newcomers scrounge for food, learn how to farm Indian corn, all the while slowly starving, and assuming appropriate roles such as indentured servants with astounding ease. Who knew how easy devolution was? Like the hit TV series Survivor, it’s about how primeval people get when survival is at stake. But unlike Survivor, there’s historical logic, authentic rituals, and significant meaning in their test. My kids, both young and teenage, are addicted to these series. If I had to choose one, I’d start with this one, the 8-hour Colonial House.
— KK
Colonial House
Director: Nick Brown
2004, 8 episodes
$26, DVD
Read more about the film at Wikipedia
Rent from Netflix
Available from Amazon
Fog of War
Strictly a talking head — this one of Robert McNamara, considered the chief strategist of the Vietnam War as he recounts his personal history of how the war began. There are many lessons to be had from his belated candor as an insider; the one I took away reflects the title of the documentary: not only was the public kept ignorant of all that was going on, but even the brass in charge did not fully agree on or understand what was happening: thus the fog of war. And 10 other lessons as well.
— KK
Fog of War
Directed by Errol Morris
2003, 107 min.
$47, DVD
Read more about the film at Wikipedia
Rent from Netflix
Available from Amazon
