documentary

This Week on HBO: the documentaries that freed a condemned man

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Last August, three men were released from prison in Arkansas – one of them from death row. This wouldn’t have happened without two HBO documentaries, the 1996 Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills and its 2000 sequel Paradise Lost 2: Revelations.  Every night this week, HBO is airing its third documentary Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory, which wraps up the series.  You don’t need to have watched the first two to get the full impact of Paradise Lost 3.

The men had served over eighteen years each for a horrific crime that they apparently had nothing to do with. Three second grade Cub Scouts were brutally raped, murdered and their bodies mutilated. The authorities, under understandable pressure to solve the crime, arrested three Metallica-loving teenagers and railroaded them for a supposed Satanic ritual killing. Although no physical evidence tied them to the crime, one teen with an IQ of 76 was browbeaten for twelve hours into a confession that he later recanted.

The HBO films spawned media interest and public and celebrity support for the convicted men, who became known as the West Memphis Three.

Recently processed DNA evidence was inconsistent with any of the defendants.  Facing the specter of a futile new trial, the prosecutor accepted a plea bargain that freed the men without their having to acknowledge guilt. Interestingly, the father of one of the victims has gone from the villain of the second HBO film to a supporter of the recently freed men. Here’s the New York Times coverage of the August 2011 developments.

Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory is on the short list for the Best Documentary Oscar this year.

[youtube-http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GqQnnXTTm3w]

 

2011 in Movies: documentaries

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PROJECT NIM

As usual, several documentaries made my list of Best Movies of 2011:  Project Nim, Buck and Tabloid.

Werner Herzog gave us the wonderful 3D Cave of Forgotten Dreams.  Page One highlighted David Carr of the New York Times.  The Polish documentary War Games and the Man Who Stopped Them was a great find.  I also admired Thunder Soul (about a Houston high school stage band in the 60s), Magic Bus (featuring actual footage of Ken Kesey’s Merry Pranksters), American Grindhouse (about the grindhouse films of the 40s, 50s and early 60s) and These Amazing Shadows (about the National Film Registry).

PBS had stellar year, especially with Woody Allen: A Documentary, Jimmy Carter, Stonewall Uprising and Troubadours.

HBO delivered Bobby Fisher Against the World.  And ESPN has entered the documentary arena with the surprising The Marinovich Project.

Buck, Project Nim and Paradise Lost 3 make Oscar short list.

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The Academy’s short list of candidates for the Best Documentary Oscar includes two films on my Best Movies of 2011 – So Far:  Buck and Project Nim.  Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory from the HBO Paradise series also made the list.  All fifteen films on the short list are here.

RIP Smokin’ Joe

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Joe Frazier in THRILLER IN MANILA

Former heavyweight champion Joe Frazier has died.

Many consider the 1975 Thrilla in Manila, the heavyweight championship bout between Frazier and Muhammed Ali, to be the greatest boxing match of all time.  Ali usually dominates the narrative of 1970s boxing.  However, the 2009 HBO documentary Thriller in Manila revisits the fight and its aftermath from Frazier’s point of view.  The film depicts Frazier in his final years, broke and living on the margins of society, still boiling with resentment from the experience.

In contrast, the 2009 documentary Facing Ali showcases Ali’s other rivals, who have all embraced their experiences with Ali as their career-defining moment.  We hear from George Chuvalo, Sir Henry Cooper, Earnie Shavers, George Foreman, Ernie Terrel, Larry Holmes, Ken Norton and Leon Spinks.  Chuvalo, Cooper and Shavers prove to be surprisingly charming raconteurs.

Thriller in Manila is on my list of 10 Best Boxing Movies, and I’ll put Facing Ali on the list when I have time.

DVD of the Week: Tabloid

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In Tabloid, master documentarian Errol Morris delivers the hilarious story of Joyce McKinney, a beauty queen jailed for manacling a Mormon missionary as her sex slave.  McKinney doesn’t like the film, but she has no complaint because two-thirds of the film is her telling her story in her own words.  The humor derives from her being such a clearly unreliable narrator – “barking mad” in the colorfully accurate description of a British journalist.  Morris came across her story decades after the kidnapping, when she had her dead dog Booger cloned from “Spirit Booger” into a litter of Korean-named Boogers.

Morris’ last two films (Standard Operating Procedure about the Abu Ghraib abuses and The Fog of War) were as funny as a heart attack.  But remember that Morris’ earliest films (Gates of Heaven, Vernon Florida and Fast Cheap & Out of Control) also focused on eccentrics and were plenty funny.  Just for fun, this time Morris even leaves in some of his snarky wisecracks to the interviewees.

This is one of the funniest movies of the year and the funniest documentary since The Aristocrats.

Pearl Jam Twenty: a good first 43 minutes…

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Just watched Pearl Jam Twenty on the PBS series American Masters.  It’s Cameron Crowe’s (Almost Famous) documentary on the formation and rise of the band Pearl Jam.  My initial test for any rock band documentary is whether it’s better than an episode of VH1’s Behind the Music.

The first 43 minutes of Pearl Jam Twenty is pretty good.  There’s the drug overdose death of the lead singer in Pearl Jam’s predecessor band (usually the fatal rock OD is AFTER the rise to stardom). There’s a wonderful video of an early performance where new lead singer Eddie Vedder unleashes the rage in his voice when angered by an overaggressive bouncer during a performance at a small club.  Finally, playing before a festival crowd of 60,000 for the first time, Vedder ends a song, gazes across the masses and inhales, literally breathing in the sweet smell of success.

But then the documentary tails off, and there’s not much in the last hour except for Vedder’s ad lib at an awards show cracking up Neil Young, Willie Nelson, Jimmy Page and Robert Plant backstage.  If you’re a big Pearl Jam fan, then the last hour is probably worthwhile.

DVD of the Week: Buck

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Buck is a documentary about real-life horse whisperer Buck Brannaman, an exceedingly grounded and gentle man who knows everything about horse behavior.  But the movie is more about human behavior,  about the disturbing crucible that formed Buck, and about what we can learn about people from their handling of horses.

Fortunately, Director Cindy Meehl realized that she had a great story and got out of the way.  The understated guitar-based score never becomes melodramatic.  And Meehl never lets the admiring talking heads elevate Buck to more than what he is, which is remarkable enough.  This movie could have easily been painfully corny or pretentious and is neither.  I’d happily view it again today.

Buck’s own background is so nasty that it would totally unremarkable for him to have emerged mean or emotionally crippled – and he is the farthest from either.  With some help from loving people, Buck has chosen to become something different from his apparent fate.  In this way, Buck could be a companion piece to Mike Leigh’s Another Year.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DCMm5uoZtXw]

Movies free condemned man from death row

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Last week, three men were released from prison in Arkansas – one of them from death row.  This wouldn’t have happened without two HBO documentaries, the 1996 Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills and its sequel Paradise Lost 2:  Revelations.  HBO is rebroadcasting them on Monday, August 29th (the first one) and Tuesday, August 30th (the sequel).

The men had served over eighteen years each for a horrific crime that they apparently had nothing to do with.  Three second grade Cub Scouts were brutally raped, murdered and their bodies mutilated.  The authorities, under understandable pressure to solve the crime, arrested three Metallica-loving teenagers and railroaded them for a supposed Satanic ritual killing.  Although no physical evidence tied them to the crime, one teen with an IQ of 76 was browbeaten into a confession that he later recanted.

The HBO films spawned media interest and public and celebrity support for the convicted men, who became known as the West Memphis Three.

Recently-processed DNA evidence was inconsistent with any of the defendants.  Facing the specter of a futile new trial, the prosecutor accepted a plea bargain that freed the men without their having to acknowledge guilt. Interestingly, the father of one of the victims has gone from the villain of the second HBO film to a supporter of the recently freed men.   Here’s the New York Times coverage.

And here’s a trailer for the first film.

 

 

Movies to See Right Now

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Tabloid

What a summer for documentaries!  Errol Morris’ documentary Tabloid delivers the hilarious story of Joyce McKinney, a beauty queen jailed for manacling a Mormon missionary as her sex slave.  The riveting documentary Project Nim tells the story of a chimp taught human language and the humans who nurture, exploit, abuse and rescue him.   Buck is another wonderful documentary about a real-life horse whisperer with a compelling human story.

The sweet, funny and thoughtful comedies Beginners and Midnight in Paris are also on my list of Best Movies of 2011 – So Far.

See the original and heartfelt teen misfit movie Terri if you can still find it.   A Little Help is a funny Jenna Fischer vehicle about a sad sack mom.   Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone are excellent in the romcom Crazy Stupid Love.

If you have kids, Pixar’s Cars 2 is an excellent choice (adults will especially enjoy the James Bond spoof thread).  So is Super 8, a wonderful coming of age story embedded in a sci fi action thriller.  Turkey Bowl is a delightful indie comedy available from iTunes.  

In Bridesmaids, Kristen Wiig plays a woman whose insecurities keep her from seeing the good and the possible in her life; it’s funny, but not one of the year’s best. The Hangover Part 2 is just not original enough, and, consequently, not funny enough. Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life contains a good 90-minute family drama that is completely derailed by an additional hour of mind-numbingly self-important claptrap.

For trailers and other choices,see Movies to See Right Now.

I haven’t yet seen the dark Irish comedy The Guard (starring Brendan Gleeson and Don Cheadle) or the sexy French comedy The Names of Love, which opens this weekend.  You can see trailers of upcoming films at Movies I’m Looking Forward To.

My DVD pick is The Music Never Stopped, with excellent performances by J.K. Simmons and Lou Taylor Pucci and lots of Grateful Dead.

Movies on TV this week include the classic noir The Third Man on TCM.

Tabloid: a gut-bustingly funny documentary

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In Tabloid, master documentarian Errol Morris delivers the hilarious story of Joyce McKinney, a beauty queen jailed for manacling a Mormon missionary as her sex slave.  McKinney doesn’t like the film, but she has no complaint because two-thirds of the film is her telling her story in her own words.  The humor derives from her being such a clearly unreliable narrator – “barking mad” in the colorfully accurate description of a British journalist.  Morris came across her story decades after the kidnapping, when she had her dead dog Booger cloned from “Spirit Booger” into a litter of Korean-named Boogers.

Morris’ last two films (Standard Operating Procedure about the Abu Ghraib abuses and The Fog of War) were as funny as a heart attack.  But remember that Morris’ earliest films (Gates of Heaven, Vernon Florida and Fast Cheap & Out of Control) also focused on eccentrics and were plenty funny.  Just for fun, this time Morris even leaves in some of his snarky wisecracks to the interviewees.

This is one of the funniest movies of the year and the funniest documentary since The Aristocrats.