Pumping Iron (1977)

Film: Pumping Iron (1977)

Stars: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Lou Ferrigno, Mike Katz, Franco Columbu

Directors: George Butler & Robert Fiore

Oscar History: No nominations

Snap Judgment Ranking: 4/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2026 Saturdays with the Stars series, we are looking at the men & women who created the Boom!-Pow!-Bang! action films that would come to dominate the Blockbuster Era of cinema.  This month, our focus is on Arnold Schwarzenegger: click here to learn more about Mr. Schwarzenegger (and why I picked him), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

It makes sense to start a month on the man who, more than any other this year, provided the definitive answer to "who is a great action star" with a first for our series.  In nearly seven seasons, we have never done a documentary, mostly because documentaries aren't really something you associate with the creative output of actors.  But Pumping Iron gives us both a really strong set up into Arnold Schwarzenegger, and also is one of the main reasons he became a star.  Growing up in Austria, the son of a local police chief (who was a member of the Nazi Party, something that would haunt Schwarzenegger for the remainder of his life, and would be a marked part of his celebrity donations, giving enormous sums of money to organizations like the Simon Wiesenthal Center and making a pointed effort to focus on Holocaust remembrance and Jewish organizations in his time in the celebrity spotlight and during his political career), Schwarzenegger's first forays into the spotlight came not from acting but from bodybuilding.  While Schwarzenegger would become the most famous figure in bodybuilding due to his subsequent movie stardom, even without that work, he'd arguably become (give or take Lee Haney & Ronnie Coleman) the most significant athlete just within the sport, and a lot of that is due to his work in Pumping Iron, a documentary that nearly wasn't released due to budgetary issues, but when it was in 1977, became a surprise hit (particularly in early home video sales), and launched Schwarzenegger into acting.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie isn't really a "spoilers needed" situation because it's based in fact, but I'll issue it mostly because the movie is about the 1975 Mr. Olympia competition (and who will win), a bodybuilding feat that is pitting some of the best in this then-niche sport against each other, and we meet them and their families.  The film centers on a number of different figures, and while all of them are big names in bodybuilding (not just because of their success at the time, but also because many of them became famous after this movie came out), you see the pitfalls of the sport, and the ways that only some people get to be the best (while others get to fail in the process).  The monetary award here is clearly secondary to other things, like personal pride, and in the case of the eventual winner (Schwarzenegger) modeling contracts and an intense amount of ego in terms of being near super-human in his perfect physique.

This is the best part of Pumping Iron, a surprisingly strong and intriguing look at a deeply hyper-masculine sport at a time when men weren't being pushed to show their softer side...because the film itself shows its softer side.  We see Mike Katz playing with his kids, and then the disappointment in him when he ends up getting fourth place in the competition he'd been so proud to brag about in the previous scene.  There's Lou Ferrigno, admitting that his parents weren't proud of him initially, and he feels a constant need to push for them to succeed...even though it's clear his parents seem to adore him (whatever the outcome).  And then of course there's Schwarzenegger, who at one point talks about how bodybuilding is the equivalent to having near constant orgasms (he uses the more colorful term of "cumming" that I'm going to use only because it's funny to think a future governor spoke this way even if it might end up getting this post flagged).  But later he has a scene where he talks about missing his own father's funeral because he couldn't deal with the headspace of such actual-world realities when he is in competition mode.  It's said with the same nonchalance as he does when he talks about the sexual gratification he gets from the sport, as if they are similar statements, and not one that's quite silly and the other hauntingly devastating.  It's like watching toxic masculinity, and the damage that it causes, in real time.

But it doesn't feel like toxic masculinity, because Schwarzenegger is unfathomably charming in this.  If you think of him from some of his later action films, where he is forced to drain anything resembling life force in favor of a robotic perfectionism, you are in for a treat.  He is flirty, friendly, braggadocios, and aware that this is a fleeting moment in his life.  You can see that he knows this isn't forever, and in some ways that life isn't forever, so he's going to enjoy and win everything he can from this moment before tackling the next challenge.  It's worth noting that in the immediate aftermath of this movie, it was Ferrigno who had immediate success with the smash hit (pun intentional) The Incredible Hulk which ran for five seasons on CBS.  But Arnold's time was coming, and it would be much, much higher than Ferrigno would ever dare to jump.  We'll talk about that next Saturday.

The Lost Leonardo (2021)

Film: The Lost Leonardo (2021)

Director: Andreas Koefoed

Oscar History: No nominations

Snap Judgment Ranking: 4/5 stars

I love all genres of film, but I will admit that when documentaries become the cinematic topic at a party, I occasionally find myself nervously eyeing the appetizer platter.  In a similar fashion to how I almost exclusively read fiction, documentaries are a harder sell for me.  The format of modern documentaries is so consistent (talking heads, mid-film reveals, horrifying realities followed by tepid calls-to-action) that it feels in some ways in the same vein as other genres that have lost their footing.  That being said, I can be won over by a documentary if it's something that interests me, and few subjects are bigger pet subjects for me than the world of high art.  I was an Art History minor in college, and love auctions, museums, and the prospect of finding a hidden masterpiece in the attic.  And of course, there is no "painting found in the attic" story more compelling than that of Salvator Mundi.

(Real life doesn't have spoiler alerts) The movie starts with the initial discovery of what is now known as the Salvator Mundi, starting with its initial purchase for around $1100 from a New Orleans auction house to its restoration by Dianne Modestini at NYU.  While restoring the painting Modestini realized that there were "two thumbs" indicating that the artist had changed the angle of the thumbs, potentially indicating that the painting was an original.  Modestini later felt certain it was a Da Vinci due to the similarities between the lips of the Salvator Mundi and the Mona Lisa.  The painting went through a hurried, and it should be noted quite shady, authentication process (several of the scholars involved said they specifically did not confirm the painting was a Da Vinci, and that it merely "could" have been a Da Vinci), and the painting went to auction.

The film does a lot of great work setting up the initial conversation about the authenticity of the painting because it brings color & shock to the back half of the film.  Salvator Mundi would eventually go to auction multiple times, making both the initial New Orleans buyers (and Modestini) a great deal of money.  It would end up in the hands of Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who has not let the painting be seen in public, despite several attempts, particularly one at the Louvre.  It is revealed in the documentary that the prince, whose connection to the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi has made him one of the most controversial and anti-democratic world leaders on the planet (despite meeting with leaders of "free democracies" like Emmanuel Macron & Donald Trump), wanted the painting in the same room as the Mona Lisa, elevating it to the status of one of the world's greatest treasures.  There is some speculation that Salman will use the painting as a tourist attraction to his country, whose dependance on oil is threatened by renewable energy pushes.  

That the painting has taken on a global significance becomes the crux of the film's argument, and a rather terrifying one at that.  The painting's attribution to Da Vinci initially emerges as a scholarly debate, but then it becomes about money & power.  Billions of dollars, the careers of hundreds of academics, auction houses, and even a country's political weight hang in the balance of whether or not this is actually a Da Vinci or simply a copy of the master's initial work.  The documentary invites more questions while doing the important step of not answering the impossible.  The film's look into the seediness of the art world is salacious & addictive, but its larger question-what is more important in the 21st Century, power or truth, is one that is increasingly difficult to answer as we watch countries wrestle with greed in the face of health & climate crises.

OVP: Collective (2020)

Film: Collective (2019)

Director: Alexander Nanau

Oscar History: 2 nominations (Best Documentary Feature, International Feature Film-Romania)

Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

As I mentioned last week when the Oscar nominations were announced, I will be making a concerted effort to see as many of the 2020-21 OVP nominees as possible before the ceremony on April 25th.  It looks like most (though not all at this point-I'm missing one key holdout) of the films are available via streaming platforms, so we should largely be done with the year by that time, if not completely finished.  As a result, we're going to devote this week's reviews to films that I have recently (in the past few days) seen, but have not reviewed that are among our contenders for this year's ceremony.  We'll find out in about a month whether or not they actually emerge with little gold statues, but right now they are in that "will they win?" glow so they're the most fun to discuss.  We'll start out with Collective, nominated in two categories and only the second film to be nominated for Best International Feature Film and Best Documentary Feature.

(It's a documentary, so like, spoiler alerts shouldn't be necessary but it is pretty twisty so I'll give you one anyway) The movie starts with what turns out to be something of a misdirect.  Initially we see the Collectiv club in Bucharest, Romania, which caught fire & due to a lack of fire exits & proper safety inspections caused the deaths of 27 people who were trapped in the building.  As the film unfolds, we see the movie shift away from this fire, instead centering around Romania's healthcare system, which failed the public (and 37 more people who died in the aftermath of the fire) through neglect & misuse of health supplies through watered-down disinfectants.  The film ends in a deeply tragic ending, with the reforms sought after by a temporary health administrator largely dismissed, as a sweeping election of the Social Democrats means that the new hospital administrator they appoint is largely unqualified for the job, meaning it's likely that the hospital will continue to cut corners (and kill people in the process).

Collective gains its name from the tragic fires that resulted in the death of 27 people, but it focuses instead on corruption in the Romanian healthcare system, how cost-cutting and government coverups resulted in myriad patients dying from infection.  This is horrifying, gripping journalism, a dangerous kind in a country that struggles with living up to traditional democratic norms.  The filmmakers & the journalists involved in the film deserve credit for bringing such human rights violations to light.

However, film is more than just great ideals, and the movie itself is not lensed or presented in a compelling way.  The film meanders, a series of press conferences & conversations around tables that feel like live footage, but there's nothing cinematic about the delivery.  I struggle with grading documentaries as a whole, but I'll be honest-this one is easier for me.  This is a case of a worthwhile topic, something that the public should be aware of, but when you start to compare it to narrative features in a category geared toward narrative features, it loses in term of its technical prowess, as there's not a lot of artistic skill in the way we are bringing this story to your screens.

Welcome to Chechnya (2020)

Film: Welcome to Chechnya (2020)

Director: David France

Oscar History: It seemed like a frontrunner for both Documentary & Visual Effects, but it missed in upsets on Oscar morning.

Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

A few weeks ago the "bakeoff" lists arrived from the Academy of the films shortlisted for a few different categories for the Academy Award, and one of the more striking films on the list was in Best Visual Effects.  Obviously in 2020-21 the biggest "delay until theaters" tactic for films that wanted to wait to release their films due to the pandemic were giant blockbusters, and so as a result there aren't a lot of Visual Effects-oriented films that were even released.  While pictures like Tenet and The Midnight Sky may have made the list in a traditional year, other movies were on the list that would've been forgotten in a normal contest, like barely-on-the-pop-culture-register pictures Bloodshot and Love & Monsters.  By far the strangest film, though, was a documentary feature called Welcome to Chechnya, which became the first documentary to ever be shortlisted for the prize.  This isn't a first that reads less "why'd this take so long?" and more "how does a documentary have visual effects?" and when many Oscar pundits quickly started to predict it for an actual nomination over more traditional fare like Birds of Prey, I thought I needed to check it out before Monday.

(Real Life Doesn't Have Spoiler Alerts) The film is focused on the horrendous genocide that is happening in Russia, and specifically Chechnya, where LGBTQ+ citizens are rounded up and murdered with the tacit endorsement of Russian President Vladimir Putin and the enthusiastic support of the head of the Chechen Republic Ramzen Kadyrov.  This genocide made news in 2017, and in the years since several countries, particularly Canada, have taken in refugees from Chechnya, while others (specifically the United States under President Trump) have pointedly refused, doing nothing to stop Putin & Kadyrov from murdering their citizens in cold blood.  The movie follows the efforts to relocate LGBTQ+ Chechen & Russian citizens into other parts of the world, and in particular focuses on one man who actually brought the story to the mainstream by filing charges in Russia much to the risk of his own personal safety.

The film is horrifying, and really shows just how cruel Vladimir Putin's regime is, and how the comparisons of him to past despots like Joseph Stalin are not hyperbolic at all-he is a man that is willing to murder anyone that gets in his way.  Watching this film, you see how truly terrifying (from an American perspective, as that's what I sport as a citizen) President Trump's embrace of Putin was-he basically was saying that LGBTQ+ lives don't matter, and that he was more-than-willing to look past the deaths if it meant helping Trump line his pockets & fuel cash to the oil industry.

I always struggle with how to grade documentaries, as I always want to give five-stars to the issues I agree with just because I want them to be solved & I want people to talk about them (people should talk about this, and President Biden should incorporate an end to this genocide in his policy negotiations with Russia, as well as to start taking in LGBTQ+ refugees who are threatened by the Putin/Kadyrov government).  The film from a technical aspect is a bit too detached.  The movie stays somewhat clinical in the ways it approaches its subjects, particularly toward the end when we want to know the human aspects of one couple's relationship (which seems to be on rockier territory as a result of one of them making their fight more public).  I understand why this happened, as these are real people in genuinely horrifying circumstances (their safety is most important), but I did feel like I left not knowing them in the way I would have from films with a similar struggle in the past.

The visual effects are fascinating, but also leave me conflicted if impressed.  In order to protect the anonymity of the people in the film, rather than just focusing on more tried methods of blurring their faces or changing their voices, the filmmakers digitally alter their faces with the visages of other people using "deep fake" technology.  Essentially we don't actually see the subjects, but other figures, though when the one person goes public, we see the guise dropped, understanding how extraordinary this technology is.  You can always tell there's something slightly off in who the figures are (there is something of a haze around the figures, especially their necks), but it's more difficult than you would normally find in past films & honestly more impressive than some of the technology we've seen in movies like Rogue One and Captain Marvel partially because we don't know what these people look like in the same way we do Carrie Fisher or Samuel L. Jackson (making identifying the deep fake more difficult).  This is the rare situation where visual effects are used as a humanitarian tool, but I'll admit-deep fake technology freaks me out.  The recently circulating video of Tom Cruise scared the crap out of me, and in a world where much of the population can't handle established scientific facts, what happens when you start throwing out false, realistic videos to the unsuspecting masses?  This is obviously something of a luddite attitude, but I haven't come to terms with how I feel quite yet, and so while I am impressed, and this is using this technology for the right reasons, I'm not entirely convinced I like the use of this technology at all until we've found rules-of-acceptability around it.  If this is nominated for the Oscars (which I will be predicting it will be), deciding this for the OVP will be a challenge, I'm stating right now.

I Carry You With Me (2020)

Film: I Carry You With Me (2020)

Stars: Armando Espitia, Christian Vazquez, Michelle Rodriguez

Director: Heidi Ewing

Oscar History: No nominations

Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

I will watch virtually any movie, and as a result I tend to not learn a lot about films prior to watching them if I can.  This is not always possible (movie trailers are a frequent pitstop when you see theatrical films, and generally that's how I wish I could see all movies), but I make a point of not knowing much about movies if I can help it.  Generally this isn't a problem for me-it in fact enhances the movie for me because I don't know what is about to take place.  However, there are exceptions to every rule, and I Carry You With Me, a well-reviewed film that has been circulating around the festival circuit for the last year is that exception, a movie that totally upended my expectations...and I didn't like it.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie is about two young gay men, who meet & fall in love in Mexico.  One is Ivan (Espititia), who is a promising young chef, and the other is Gerardo (Vazquez), a teacher.  They eventually escape into the United States, making a home for themselves (first Ivan, then Gerardo), but are constantly pulled back to their home country of Mexico, and the families that they left behind, including Ivan's son.

It is at this point that we encounter something unusual.  Two-thirds of the way through a movie that has been acted by actors playing a part, the film becomes a documentary.  The love story that preceded this portion was based on a true story, and these two men are still alive, and still living in New York.  They cannot safely leave the country without risk that they couldn't return, and so they haven't seen their family in decades.  Ivan wishes to return, and potentially start a different chapter, while Gerardo feels more content to stay where they are.  The film shows them at a crossroads, and it isn't clear how their relationship will endure (and in what capacity) if they decide to separate so one can return to Mexico.

This is not a bad idea.  American Animals a few years ago showed that you can successfully merge narrative film (not just recreations, but a proper movie) with a documentary film to create a successful, challenging insight into the documentary format that you might otherwise not be able to, but I didn't like it in this capacity.  The late act feels like a twist, and a cheap one-we have become invested in these actors' performances in a way you can't in American Animals (since you know the documentary is always there), and it pulled me completely out of the movie.  I became less-vested in the preceding performances, and the documentary portion (particularly the couple's struggles with where their relationship will go next) feels rushed, and not connected enough to what came before without more resolution.  This is an interesting experiment-I'd be onboard with Ewing's next picture as there's a lot of ambition in what she's attempting here, but I left the movie unfulfilled.

The Booksellers (2020)

Film: The Booksellers (2020)
Stars: Fran Lebowitz
Director: DW Young
Oscar History: No nominations
Snap Judgment Ranking: 4/5 stars

If you've got an eye for detail or you read this blog religiously, you might notice that I haven't done something yet this year.  While I have seen, by my count, ten films in theaters this year (including one retro screening and two shorts compilations), I have not seen a "2020" movie yet this year, one that was released and intended for 2020.  This is obviously not my fault (for the most part).  While I had a lot of intentions of seeing some movies, and in fact nearly saw The Gentlemen (oh how I wish I had now), and certainly will see Emma & Onward at some point, Covid-19 got in the way of that, and movie theaters being closed cost me that opportunity.  Still, I had been holding out, as I like seeing movies that are new in theaters.  I like supporting theaters, whether they be local chains or national ones, and I love going to the movies.  The idea that I wasn't going to have my "first" 2020 movie experience in a theater was a huge bummer to me.  But as the lack of leadership from the White House and people handling coronavirus in increasingly irresponsible ways makes it unlikely I'll be in a movie theater for at least another couple of months, I decided it was time to break down & see a 2020 movie.  Luckily, The Booksellers, a documentary film that had definitely peaked my interest, was doing a promotion where if you buy a ticket you can support a local theater and some of the profits would go to them, and so this appeased my conscience & obsessive-compulsiveness just a little bit, and so while it'll always have an asterisk next to it, in my heart I got to sit down in Minneapolis's iconic Riverview Theater to watch this movie.

The Booksellers is a documentary about the New York rare books scene, though they expand throughout the country in looking for collectors.  The film is not specifically about used bookstores, the kind we clamor for right now across the country, though they do pop up.  Instead it's really focused on rare book dealers, the kind who might be able to trade in a first-edition of Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland or autographed copies of a James Baldwin hardcover.  The film shows how this is a trade that has seen a decline in-person.  People don't read as much as they used to, and as a result there's less people who have books in their daily repertoire than there would have been even twenty years ago (sad fact-I was on a Zoom call a few weeks ago, and I rather foolishly asked "has anyone read anything good while on quarantine?" and it was sudden crickets, along with at least one "I haven't had time to" which was kind of funny because time is the one thing we all seem to be complaining is in excess right now...but I digress).  For those who do enjoy reading, they can get access to rare books through sites such as Amazon or eBay; again, anecdotally, my dad spent twenty years trying to find a rare Robert Heinlein short story collection he'd read as a youth, which I got him almost immediately after Amazon became a thing.  All-in-all, it's a story about a trade that's in decline, but one that still has a lot of interest for a select group of people, and the movie is spent exploring those people, and how they view the past & future of their industry.

You'll notice I keep throwing in personal anecdotes here, and there's a reason for that-The Booksellers only really works if you're a certain type of person, and a certain type of reader, the kind that will grin when they see themselves in certain comments & memories shared throughout the film.  This is a documentary for people who respond really personally to books, whether that's in shopping for them or collecting them or obviously reading them.  If you are someone who doesn't enjoy books, this will be incredibly boring to you, and if you're someone who doesn't enjoy finding new authors, or only wants to read what's popular right now, this isn't for you either (that's not meant to sound condescending-that's just how you're interpreting it).

I, personally, am fascinated by books and book culture, and I loved the documentary.  It's not a great film-there's no compelling argument being made through this, and in many ways it's more meant as a reflection than a documentary, but it's still lovely.  Looking at some of these cozy nooks covered in books, you feel at home.  You want to go into these libraries and warehouses (yes-there's a warehouse filled with rare books, and it's magnificent).  You will laugh at Fran Lebowitz's witticisms, and you will leave wanting to go read & buy more books.  If I had seen this, truly, in the Riverview, I can mentally think of at least five bookstores nearby I might have skipped over to afterward just to peruse.  I ended up instead poring through my library for a bit, reading snippets of novels I have read and back covers of ones I'm meaning to get to, and adding a few more books to my rotating "I need to read this pile."  And I longed for both movie theaters & bookstores, my two favorite oases, which is perhaps the best compliment I could give to such a film.

Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004)

Film: Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004)
Stars: Michael Moore
Director: Michael Moore
Oscar History: The film wasn't submitted for the Best Documentary Feature (considering its box office, it almost certainly would've won the category) as Moore wanted to compete for Best Picture, which he wasn't cited for (though one wonders in the expanded field if he might have made that happen).  It did win the Palme d'Or though.
Snap Judgment Ranking: 4/5 stars

I don't entirely know how it's possible I didn't watch Fahrenheit 9/11 in college.  I definitely saw Bowling for Columbine during that time on DVD, and this was a movie that I would have discussed with peers at the time.  It's probably because I was living at home when it came out during the summer, but it's weird that I didn't also catch this on DVD, as it certainly would have been a discussion point as I was an ardent volunteer for the Kerry campaign that fall.  Whatever the reason, I finally caught this movie for the first time a few days ago, and it's jaw-dropping.  I don't watch a lot of one-sided documentaries nor politically-focused ones, because they usually slant enough that they border on falsehood.  Even if you know something not to be true, when you see someone say it amidst a bunch of other facts, it gets caught in your brain as "well, maybe I'm wrong and they're right."  This is also why I never watch cable news opinion shows, even with people I agree with, because I want to keep my opinions grounded in fact.  But I'm trying to see all of the Palme winners, and this one popped up in my Netflix queue, so I figured I'd give it a shot, and while Moore's occasional use of bias to make a point comes through still 16 years after the fact, it's the crystal ball he put up to America and the Republican Party that is truly shocking.

(There are no Spoiler Alerts in Real Life) The film focuses on the biggest headlines from the first term of George W. Bush's presidency.  The big stories that Moore focuses on are the 2000 election, the 9/11 attacks, the Iraq War & the reasons for going into war, and the Bush family's connections to the Saudi Arabian royal family.  The film's back-half continually hearkens back to Lila Lipscomb, its most emotionally-effective sequence.  Lipscomb is a Michigan woman who spent most of her life being against pacifist protesters, thinking they were attacking her family (she had a long military family history), and then changes her opinion when her son dies in Iraq.  We see her stand outside the White House, fighting with another woman who is accusing anti-war protesters of being staged and "not real."  The film ends with Moore, sympathetic to the soldiers, pointing out that only one member of Congress has a child fighting (they never mention who it is, but for the curious it was then-Sen. Tim Johnson of South Dakota), and noting that wars are consistently fought by lower-income families who are not afforded the same financial opportunities afforded to those politicians who send them to war.

This film was made in the run-up to the 2004 election, so in many ways it was meant as a deterrent for Democrats to not take lightly a second term of Bush's presidency.  This message was not, of course, realized.  Despite Moore's film becoming the highest-grossing documentary of all-time, George W. Bush won that election, and it had dire consequences for liberals (Hurricane Katrina, the housing crisis, and the Supreme Court tenures of John Roberts & Samuel Alito happened during that time frame, for context).  It's heartbreaking as a Democrat to watch Moore lay out the case for denying Bush a second term in such a cinematic way, and yet know that not only would he not be heard, but we'd elect a second Bush just sixteen years after the first in the form of Donald Trump.  Indeed, the shots of incompetence, corruption, and moral bankruptcy displayed by some of the politicians in the film feels like it could be plucked from our current administration verbatim.

Moore's film isn't flawless, even if it's very easy to digest (even 16 years after the fact, when a number of the headliner names are distant memories).  There are scenes that a serious journalist (one who came in with an open mind) certainly wouldn't have allowed.  There appear to be half-truths during the sequence about the Saudi flights, allowing Osama bin Laden's relatives to leave the United States without being questioned (this is not correct-many of them were questioned before they left the United States), and Moore's confrontations with members of Congress were also edited.  Putting aside that Johnson was the only member of the Senate who had a child serving in Iraq at the time (both Reps. Duncan Hunter & Joe Wilson had children fighting abroad), the confrontations were edited to make the members of Congress, particularly Mark Kennedy, look worse than they actually were (Kennedy is shown simply confused by Moore, but has stated later that he did chat with him for a while, and that his nephew served in Afghanistan).

This is because Michael Moore is not a journalist, he's a filmmaker, and filmmaker's have perspectives.  It's hard for me to sort of intermingle my feelings about Moore's politics (which I tend to share) with his attitude toward journalism (which I do not share) and then to add in his filmmaking skills, which are at their best here.  I'm giving this four stars because I think it's an important, well-made film, but one that relies too heavily on pushing a narrative when there is enough evidence there to let the narrative come together on its own.

The Art of the Steal (2009)

Film: The Art of the Steal (2009)

Director: Don Argott

Oscar History: No nominations

Snap Judgment Ranking: 1/5 stars

If you stick around here long enough, you'll know that there are some odd rules on the Oscar Viewing Project, my obsessive project where I try and view as many Oscar-nominated films as I possibly can during this lifetime.  One of the nuances is that I don't watch all of the categories, and specifically skip the shorts categories and the documentaries.  I think it's obvious why I don't do the Shorts (they're hard to find even two years after they came out-they'd border on the impossible if I went back a couple of decades-feature films struggle that far in the past.  However, documentaries aren't that much harder to track down than foreign-language films, and I definitely include those movies in the project.  No, the reason I don't do documentaries is that while it's possible (though not always easy) to be objective about a film that was considered great in its era but has aged poorly (in terms of technology or its stance on social issues), documentaries do not have that same luxury.  What was important even a decade ago might not seem so now, and certainly the way we approach facts, institutions, and the public good has changed.  There are few better illustrations of this than The Art of the Steal, a ten-year-old documentary that I randomly (I would be willing to bet that this film has been slowly-but-steadily moving itself to the top of my Netflix queue for 11 years, and I don't think that's an exaggeration from someone who usually keeps about 900 films on that list) caught yesterday.

(Real life doesn't have spoilers, but this is definitely intended to be a "big reveal" documentary, so proceed with caution) The movie is about the Barnes Foundation, a collection of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist art valued at some $25 billion.  Pretty much every artist you can think of from the late 19th and early 20th century is represented-van Gogh, Cezanne, Renoir, Degas, Picasso, Modigliani.  Another of the artists, Henri Matisse, apparently said of the collection and the school that once housed it, "it is the only sane place in America to view art."  Suffice it to say, it is a thing of value, and as the film says, the owner of the collection, Albert Barnes, had a very specific way he wanted the art to be appreciated and viewed.  After his death, though, there were consistent leadership changes within his foundation, many of which violated the spirit and letter of his will, which stipulated where he wanted the art to be presented.  The film ends with (according to the directors) an enormous amount of political maneuvering to move the collection from Lincoln University, where Barnes bequeathed it, to Philadelphia, to be a part of the larger Philadelphia Museum of Art, and indeed that is where it now lives, absent from a traditional university setting, but certainly viewed by considerably more people than it would have been in either Barnes' lifetime or in the original settings he stipulated in his will.

In my opinion, director Don Argott (despite his protestations), presents a one-sided argument in his movie.  There is little effort into understanding anyone who would have been supportive of moving the art from its original location in Lincoln University to Philadelphia.  How Argott could assume that it's not one-sided is absurd, and he doesn't make, in my opinion, enough of an effort to present both sides of this discussion.  Some of the figures involved in moving the collection to Philadelphia declined the interview (figures like billionaire art collector Ronald Perelman and Pew Charitable Trusts CEO Rebecca Rimel), but not all of them.  He has as part of his film former Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell, whom he heavily implies might have used state funds prior to a decision to move the art collection, of doing so without telling a court that there was $100 million in the state budget that could be used to keep the collection at Lincoln University (which needed the money to make repairs and modernize the museum); he certainly lists Rendell as one of several suspects who might have known about the money in the state budget.  But he doesn't ask Rendell about this, which makes me wonder about partiality in general in the documentary.  And once trust in the documentarians goes, it's hard to take what you've seen prior seriously.  Not all of the flashy editing, great twist reveals, and salacious name-dropping in the world makes up for a movie you don't think is being honest.

But there's also a more intriguing argument here.  Without abandon throughout the film, people loyal to Barnes' vision fight for the man's ability to dictate what happened to his art from beyond the grave, but no one ever asks-why should we care?  These paintings are not Barnes' creation-they are the creation of people like Pablo Picasso and Claude Monet.  Why is it that Barnes gets to dictate for all-time how these paintings, which he once owned, get to be displayed?  It feels absurd to me that these get to remain his property for all time, even though he's been dead for 70 years.  You can argue that his method was correct, but arguing that "it was his his vision" is a bad argument-he's been dead far longer than he ever owned any of this art.  Putting aside the moral issue of whether or not there were falsehoods presented to a court (which, it's worth noting, that same judge eventually argued still didn't change his decision that the art could move to Philadelphia), Barnes should not get to dictate what happens to another person's artistic property for the rest of time just because he happened to die while he was still owning the art.  

It's hard to imagine an unbiased documentary today not at least discussing this perspective.  Views on inheritance and accumulated wealth have shifted pretty dramatically in the past decade (look at the passion behind Elizabeth Warren's presidential campaign for clear evidence of this), and it's worth asking-why should Barnes' vision for this property continue to be dictated decades later?  One could put up a better argument that these paintings do more good as part of the public trust rather than continuing to be tethered to their previous owner; that his dominion over them should have ended when he died, and absent a spouse or a dependent who relied on Barnes for financial support, would be better off going to a public museum overrun by a government (which is instilled by a majority of the people).  The documentary spends so much time deifying Albert Barnes, that, even if they view him as a genius and innovator, it doesn't have time to question at what point does his dictate over art he didn't even create end?

OVP: Honeyland (2019)

Film: Honeyland (2019)
Stars: Hatidze Muratova
Director: Tarama Kotevska & Ljubomir Stefanov
Oscar History: 2 nominations (Best International Feature Film-North Macedonia, Documentary Feature)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 5/5 stars

Honeyland this past year made history by joining movies like Parasite and Pain & Glory with getting multiple nominations for the Oscars, escaping the "foreign film" marginalization that usually only relegates films with subtitles to one category.  Honeyland was unique because its second nomination was in the Best Documentary feature category, making it the first film to be nominated in both categories.  Honeyland is not what you'd consider a traditional documentary, however.  It doesn't, for example, take a look at the many people of North Macedonia or the diminishing bee population (as I initially expected based on the title), but instead focuses on a year in the life of one woman, our unlikely protagonist Hatidze Muratova.

(It's real life, but you don't know this plot so I'm giving a spoiler alert anyway) The film follows Hatidze throughout a year in her life.  Initially, she is alone, happy but devoted to her work as a wild beekeeper whose human companion is her ailing mother.  Her sisters died when she was quite young, and she never married, but this isn't a problem for her future in the film's opening sequences, where she happily sells her honey and comes back with bananas & a peacock fan for her mother.  However, when a large family arrives with a trailer, her peaceful existence ends.  She tries to make friends with the family, even sharing her wisdom on how to maintain bees, but the family disregards her advice, and as a result, they harvest too much of the honey, and as a result their bees invade & kill Hatidze's.  Her mother soon dies, and the family, without means of sustaining themselves, also leave, with Hatidze now destitute without her longtime companion and no more occupation.

The film is marvelous, and incredibly well-crafted.  You don't get the sense of what's about to happen in the slow first thirty minutes, and you might be reaching for your phone or clicking the pause button, but don't, as it all comes together narratively as the family arrives.  The documentary features no conversations with the directors, no narration, just observation into Hatidze's life, and, as the film progresses, her wandering neighbor family.  As a result, you don't get to witness the catharsis you'd normally expect from such a movie.  While Hatidze goes ahead & (justifiably) chastises them for betraying her and their community (ruining her life, quite frankly), we just get excuses from these selfish bystanders, and without the director stepping in and saying "you need to apologize," we are left emotionally similar to Hatidze at the end of the film.  That this is a real film, and we aren't just watching an actress but someone whose actual life had been torn from her, is gut-wrenching, and Honeyland is honestly one of the saddest films I've seen in years because there's no silver lining in this woman's life.

The fact that it feels like we're watching something narrative is probably why it got nominated in both categories, but in terms of a documentary, it's honestly perfect at getting its messaging across.  The family is trying to do what's best for them, and if you try to remember they're real, struggling people too, you begin to have some sympathy for them...but then you remember that Hatidze gave them a plan on how to coexist with her.  It's not hard to see a climate change metaphor here, with Hatidze as planet earth, giving & giving, but warning that if the family exceeds the limits, they will both perish, and the family simply not having the strength to listen.  It's a cruel reminder of how easy some problems are to solve, and how it's not desperation but malice & greed that ultimately cause us to falter.

John's Top 10 of 2019 (That Aren't From 2019)

One of my favorite hallmarks of 2019 was the number of movies that I enjoyed for the first time.  Between our June tribute to Film Noir to our weekly Saturdays with the Stars to our constant array of OVP movies (to just movies I randomly saw), we got through a lot of pictures both famous and largely forgotten this year.  As a result, we're adding a first-time ever list of the Top 10 films that I saw for the first time this year (not including the movies of 2019, which we went through this morning).  Without further adieu...

The Adventures of Robin Hood (Michael Curtiz, 1938)

Errol Flynn has never been sexier than in this Technicolor marvel, with great action sequences, fabulous costumes, and a frothy, rich score.  If this is a classic that you (like me) have been putting off for a while, change that immediately.

Brigadoon (Vincente Minnelli, 1954)

Yes, it's kind of silly that Cyd Charisse randomly lives in an Irish town that only appears once every hundred years.  But honestly, when the costumes, sets, and musical numbers are this romantic, you genuinely won't care.  Van Johnson has never been better.

Broadcast News (James L. Brooks, 1987)

Holly Hunter becomes a superstar in this ahead-of-its-time comedy about a newsroom more obsessed with ratings than in delivering the truth.  Few comedies from the 1980's are this smart some thirty years later.

Detour (Edgar G. Ulmer, 1945)

I've never seen a movie alternate between genius and "is this terrible?" quite at the same pace as Detour, a prototypical film noir with a heart as black as steel.  Ann Savage gives us arguably the most dangerous femme fatale in the genre.

Free Solo (Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi & Jimmy Chin, 2018)

Not cheating (I saw this after I announced my "best of" list last year) Free Solo is a heart-pounding look at one man and his quest for immortality, even if he doesn't entirely understand why he's pursuing it.

In a Lonely Place (Nicholas Ray, 1950)

Gloria Grahame gives the performance of a lifetime in this seedy, nasty look at Hollywood's underbelly.  In a year where we were given All About Eve & Sunset Blvd as indictments of show business, this is perhaps the most damning picture of what fame can do to a man.

A Letter to Three Wives (Joseph L. Mankiewicz, 1949)

A picture-perfect melodrama featuring Linda Darnell & Ann Sothern in ace roles, A Letter to Three Wives shows us a less glamorous domesticity, and what can happen when a ruthless Celeste Holm comes in and tries to destroy it.

Nightmare Alley (Edmund Goulding, 1947)

Of all of the noir we watched this year, Nightmare Alley stands apart as the bleakest.  Cruel in its fate, it shows us what happens when Tyrone Power falls hard...and then realizes there's no end to the pit.  Man is Helen Walker great in this movie.

Swept Away (Lina Wertmuller, 1974)

Thought-provoking.  Challenging.  Possibly sexist.  Certainly impossible-to-make-today.  Swept Away is considered recent Oscar-winner Lina Wertmuller's magnum opus, and for good reason-the film is a mesmerizing look at sex, power, and what happens in the blue sea of August.

The Woman in the Window (Fritz Lang, 1944)

Up until the film's final moments, it's pretty much perfect.  A brilliant piece of work from Edward G. Robinson, Joan Bennett, & especially Dan Duryea, the movie that would become the prototype for later film noir is genius all on its own.

Born in China (2016)

Film: Born in China (2016)
Stars: John Krasinski
Director: Lu Chuan
Oscar History: No nominations
Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

I was on kind of a strange kick of nature documentaries over the holiday break, with Our Planet and Dynasties both watched in their entirety.  Since I was trying to prolong my vacation as much as possible, and because I wanted to start investigating the movies I'd bookmarked on Disney+, I went ahead and watched Born in China randomly.  I generally love nature documentaries, and while I haven't been as good as I used to be with seeing the DisneyNature films every year (it was for a while there an Earth Day tradition), I'm now attempting to finish all of the ones I'm missing on Disney+ as I'm nothing if not a cinematic completest.  Considering my adoration of pandas, I started with Born in China of the pictures.

The film, despite the marketing focusing almost exclusively on the giant panda, actually tells the tale of four different species of animals: a panda, a family of snow leopards, a golden snub-nosed monkey, and a herd of chiru.  The film follows these (wild) animals as they learn from their parents-there's clearly a parent-and-child message here that would feel just as at-home in something like The Lion King.  Along the way we learn the strength of family in the animal world, and perhaps get a hint that we're "not so different" when the animals onscreen behave similarly to what we'd expect from human children (getting into trouble, wanting independence, fighting with parents).

The movie is an odd juxtaposition to the Attenborough documentaries that I had been watching.  The BBC doesn't have a cute-and-cuddly animal mascot at its center, and its messages are more focused on education, not wanting to challenge the harshness of these animal creatures.  Attenborough's obsession with "eating and mating" isn't here at all; we do see some moments of a hawk hunting the animals, but that's about the scariest moment here, as even the impressive footage of the snow leopards feels coated in rose-colored glasses.  Instead we see nurturing and play take center stage.

This is probably fine for Disney, and maybe will inspire a future generation of young people devoted to environmentalism (if so, this movie would be a 5-star endeavor), but I feel like the film as a documentary or even a narrative feels cloying.  Krasinski's narration is too jocular, and too intent on making the animals seem "just like us."  Particularly with the monkeys, they put feelings and understandings on the young creatures that we just can't know about the animals, which feels dangerous since it gives the audience a faulty sense of science.  This was a valid criticism of Attenborough's Dynasties, but at least there the reality of nature wasn't totally erased.  Here, I feel like Disney goes as close to making these creatures animals in a story as they can without basically making them trained seals.

Tea with the Dames (2018)

Film: Tea with the Dames (2018)
Stars: Eileen Atkins, Judi Dench, Joan Plowright, Maggie Smith
Director: Roger Michell
Oscar History: No nominations for the film, but with nominations for 14 Oscars, 16 Emmys, 31 Olivier Awards, 26 Globes, & an astounding 49 BAFTA citations, this is a cast that is perpetually in need of more shelf space for their hardware.
Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

I sometimes imagine the joy that other people feel when watching SportsCenter or Real Housewives is the joy I feel watching actresses being interviewed.  I love literally nothing more than talking about movies and acting and performances, and seek out such a thrill every chance I get.  If such an analogy works, Tea with the Dames would surely be a Super Bowl of sorts.  Seating Eileen Atkins, Joan Plowright, Judi Dench, & Maggie Smith in the same room is absolute unparalleled bliss, watching them spar, chuckle, and think over decades of performances, careers, and costars.  Honestly-even if it's never quite as flawless as the trailer made it seem, the movie is impossible to resist, and filled with marvelous quotes and reflections from four grand titans in the world of acting.

The film follows the four longtime friends on what appears to be a leisurely weekend at Plowright's country estate, one that she used to own with her husband, Laurence Olivier, who costarred with all four women throughout their careers.  The film meanders between table conversations among the four women, with Dench & Smith, obviously the most famous of the quartet, dominating the chatting, and then one-on-one interviews with either one or two of the women in pairs.  The film focuses a lot on their stage work, which is extensive and kind of admirably ridiculous (between the four women, is there a play by Shakespeare or Chekhov that they haven't got covered?), occasionally meandering their time in film or their personal lives, but most frequently it's just meandering conversation, quite frequently sneaking in the names of other titled thespians with whom they worked (in addition to Olivier, players as diverse as John Gielgud, Edith Evans, and Robert Stephens all get name-checked, frequently with a "Sir" or "Dame" tagged on to pay respect).

The movie is, on its own merits, fine.  The film suffers a bit from waiting too long for making such a picture.  Smith, at a very-recent 84, is the youngest of the bunch, and age has started to put a strain on the once matchless wit of the women, as we are reminded when Michell throws in snippets of old interviews of the actresses.  It's a bit heartbreaking watching Plowright, in particular, walk around the house with handrails and a guide, as she has gone almost completely blind in the past decade and as a result is absent for more of the picture than the other three women.  Not even 90 minutes long, it feels like the sort of film that needed a bit more spring, but also would have benefited from more length (provided the length wasn't just filler), and it's hard to watch & not come to the realization that these amazing women may someday soon all be gone from our mortal coil.

That said, it's impossible to deny the pleasures of such a movie.  Watching these four women, who have given the world so much with their talents and gifts, is a thrill.  Each one of them has film and television memories for me etched across her face, and so I could go watch this exact movie again right now and be totally fine.  The movie may not be everything I hoped, but what's there is more than enough.  Flighty, fun, getting all of its meaning from four proper legends of stage and screen, all of whom it's impossible not to love if you care at all for the art of acting.

OVP: Free Solo (2018)

Film: Free Solo (2018)
Stars: Alex Honnold
Director: Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin
Oscar History: 1 nomination/1 win (Best Documentary Feature*)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 5/5 stars

I have a massive fear of heights, particularly high open spaces.  This is a weird conundrum for me, because since I was a little boy I also had a fascination with mountains and explorers.  I have a copy of a Life Magazine (one of those hardbound ones they sell at the Target checkouts) that profiles explorers from the past that became so worn through the years that when they re-released an anniversary addition I bought one just as an insurance policy.  So when Free Solo came out, I had a conundrum-do I see this movie which is apparently so intense as to make people actually upset while watching it due to their squeamishness about heights, or do I avoid it despite my love of adventuring?  Turns out my brother made that decision for me when he named it one of his best movies of the year (I always make a point of seeing all of my brother's favorite films of the year), and so on Wednesday night I went to it, fully ready to see the movie through cupped hands.  What I found was an awesome, awe-inspiring documentary that counts amongst the best I've ever had the privilege to witness, and if this movie is still playing at an iMax theater near you, do yourself a favor and get over your fears by catching the film.

(Do documentaries need spoiler alerts?) The movie is succinct (clocking in at exactly 100 minutes), and focuses on a single climber rather than a larger look at the art of solo-climbing: Alex Honnold.  A 33-year-old college dropout with a smile fit for a Neutrogena ad, Honnold is at first a strange choice upon which to center a documentary.  He has a ridiculously nonchalant attitude about pretty much everything, talking about his father's death with less emotion than he does how much he loves living in a van, and while he's easy-going, he's the sort of person you expect to be friends with and then he just forgets you exist.  This is highlighted in particular as we follow his relationship with girlfriend Sanni McClandess, who is not as closed-off as Alex about her emotions, and struggles to find a common ground with the man she's fallen in love with who seems incapable of telling her that he loves her (though he does at the very end of the movie, a moment that the documentarians wisely chose not to underline but it's there in its glory, ready for the narrative look at Honnold's life).

Chai & Chin's movie is successful because it finds even under Honnold's enigmatic exterior the soul of a man that is willing to give up his life with one slip of the rocks.  The movie ends with us knowing about as much about Honnold as we can, a man whose brain chemistry literally is different enough that he doesn't experience fear in the same way as an average person, likely allowing him to endure free solo climbing in this way.  They show the incredibly uncomfortable scene where he and Sanni are shopping for a house, and you can tell he's miserable giving himself over to change, only doing this because even though he can't say it, he loves her in his own way.  You wonder why she stays with him in these moments, rather than abandon him for a more conventional relationship, but there's something about Alex, and it's not just the big dick swagger he exudes or the fact that he's built like a Roman statue (the filmmakers go back to a scene of Alex shirtlessly doing pullups that feels weirdly reminiscent of Richard Gere doing situps in American Gigolo).  Alex is someone you feel, even as an audience member, you will remember forever because there's so few people like him. In a world where everyone is "special," he actually is.

This becomes clear when we get to the climbing sequences, which are mesmerizing.  It sort of staggers me that in a year where poorly-cut Bohemian Rhapsody and Vice somehow were nominated for Editing that Free Solo couldn't muster a similar citation, because there are moments where you watch this film and wonder not only how Alex can do this, but how could it be filmed this way?  The precision, dedication, and exactness of the camerawork is so meticulous it's easy to see this winning the Oscar in a week-any filmmaker will understand the stakes here, when literal lives are on the line.  The filmmakers even turn the cameras on themselves at one point, talking about how they don't want to pressure Alex to do this so that they have a movie, and wondering what sort of responsibility they'll have if he dies while they're filming.

But he doesn't die, and in one of the most mesmerizing 15 minutes I saw onscreen in the past year, he achieves his childhood dream of climbing El Capitan, the Holy Grail of free solo-climbing.  Even if you know how it's going to end, it's still jaw-dropping watching Alex meticulously climb the mountain, and you join in the documentarians who watch in horror as he ascends.  Alex, continually without fear, literally smiles and talks to the cameraman as he makes it to the very top, in a sequence where most of us would be screaming in abject horror.  It's filmed so well it's impossible to have cynical "what if he sneezes?" sorts of thoughts, instead just praying and watching a truly remarkable achievement of human endeavor.  I burst into tears as he ascended the summit, not realizing how invested I'd become in this mysterious man's shot at perfection.  Free Solo is the sort of movie that lifts your spirits, but also finds new ways to examine human achievement and our quest to find our place in the world, even if we can only find that place by going places none dare tread.

Three Identical Strangers (2018)

Film: Three Identical Strangers
Director: Tim Wardle
Oscar History: No nominations
Snap Judgment Ranking: 4/5 stars

"Truth is stranger than fiction" has always been one of the more idiotic phrases, as it's categorically untrue.  Truth, by definition cannot be stranger than fiction, because it has bounds in reality.  In real life, we don't discover a portal to another world or an undead creature walking amongst us or an alien race invading the planet.  Fiction has no parameters, truth does.  That being said, what this phrase does get to is that, without the tropes of fantasy, science-fiction, or horror to use as crutches, there are times that we have moments in truth that we wouldn't believe in fiction, where it would have been "impossible" except it really happened.  This is certainly the case with Three Identical Strangers, a shocking, engrossing new documentary that starts out with a sharp, seemingly improbable turn in its first ten minutes, and then keeps throwing jaw-dropping (there were audible "what?" or "whoa" moments from the audience throughout, including once from me) revelations nearly until the end of the picture.  To give away much more would do you a disservice, so if you haven't seen it, bookmark now and come back later as I'm going pretty heavy into the spoilers, and while I don't usually do this for documentaries, I'm issuing a big, fat SPOILER ALERT for the coming paragraphs until you've seen the picture.

(Spoilers Ahead...I'm not kidding) The film follows three brothers (David, Eddy, and Bobby) as they meet in the most unusual way possible. Bobby, one day while attending his first day at college, is confused for Eddy by a number of his fellow classmates, and eventually goes to meet Eddy, realizing in the process that they must be twins as they are nearly identical in every way despite having no knowledge of one another.  After a news story about "long lost twins" comes out, a third brother, David, comes forward and it appears that they were in-fact triplets.  The three brothers, gregarious and quite good-looking, seem a natural fit for the media circuit, and we see them appear on Donahue and The Today Show and become something of a flash-in-the-pan celebrity trio (they even have a cameo in Desperately Seeking Susan).  In the process, however, their parents slowly become suspicious as to why they had separated the children, and we learn as the film goes on that the three siblings were part of an elaborate, choreographed study that included other separated twins or multiple-birth pairs who were being studied extensively by famed child psychologist Peter Neubauer as what initially appears to be a study of nature vs. nurture in terms of psychological disorders (whether or not they are hereditary), instead becomes a study of putting children in different socio-economic backgrounds/parenting styles and seeing how they would turn out.

The film does a marvelous job of peeling this apple, frequently borrowing from proper cinematic films like The Usual Suspects in the way that it unveils mystery-after-mystery, replaying seemingly innocuous news clips that are now clues that the audience overlooked previously.  When it becomes clear that the parents had been picked years before for the adoption agency (all three brothers had three older adopted sisters so they already knew something about the parenting styles of these three families, including that one of the fathers was a "strict disciplinarian" that might not be well-suited for parenting, though Wardle seems to straddle the line a bit on having an opinion on that one), I gasped.  The coordination involved could make literally anyone paranoid after viewing this picture.  Neubauer died in 2008, so he doesn't have any interviews, but two people who worked with him on the study are interviewed, and it's quite shocking to see how cavalier they are about a study that appears to have devastated so many.

Arguably the most telling interview in the film comes in its center with a woman who served with Neubauer during part of the study as an assistant.  We open on the woman looking through photos she has taken with people like the Obamas, Al Gore, and Hillary Clinton.  We're expecting that she's about to be a kind, sympathetic-minded person who will understand in hindsight how heinous this appears, how cruel it was and deeply unethical, but that is not the way that this goes.  One of the more shocking things about Wardle's film is how he never assumes bad intentions on anyone, instead letting them frame themselves against the narrative.  We see her quickly excise herself from the responsibilities of Neubauer's vision (both she and the other assistant were just "a small part of the study"), but celebrate it as well.  She's right in a way-because of the ethical standards of this study, it could (and should) never be replicated, but there is an intense amount of pride in her voice in her work, as she knows the scientific findings of such a study, even one that borders on the criminal, are strong.  It's the closest anyone will ever get to the "nature vs. nurture" question, but much like the Nazi hypothermia experiment debate, it opens up a host of ethical questions as to whether it is appropriate to use such research considering where it came from.

If there's a flaw here, it's perhaps that Wardle, overwhelmed by the twists-and-turns of these three brothers' lives, doesn't always have an opinion on where his film is going and as a result forgets to keep all of the storylines in order.  Wardle, for example, doesn't seem to have an opinion on whether or not this could be a study of import, and seems to lean toward nurture regardless of the answers of the study, influenced by Eddy's suicide considering his father was the least "loving" of the three male parents of the triplets.  He weirdly doesn't examine Bobby & David's relationship post their brother's death, as it seems like it became estranged but there's no confirmation of that other than David stating to Bobby in the only joint interview in the film "good to see you."  If the ending is meant to be about human connection, forgetting to update us on the frayed relationship of these two brother's lives feels like an enormous miss on the part of the filmmaker.  Still, though, the storytelling up until that point is riveting and edge-of-your-seat, and sharp.  I can't wait to see where Wardle goes next, as he clearly has a knack for plot, even when anchored by real life.

OVP: RBG (2018)

Film: RBG (2018)
Stars: Ruth Bader Ginsburg
Director: Betty West & Julie Cohen
Oscar History: 2 nominations (Best Documentary Feature, Original Song-"I'll Fight")
Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars (I wavered between 2 & 3-the film is more enjoyable in the moment than it is when you hold a critical lens up to it.  So if you're not in the mood to think too hard (or need to see a true patriot after Trump's Twitter tirades in the past week), see this...even if "don't think too hard" is a terrible endorsement of a documentary)

Ruth Bader Ginsburg is a national treasure and an American hero.  I was struck by this over-and-over again last night as I watched her documentary RBG, which has been tearing up the art-house scene and even migrating into more mainstream pictures (I saw it at an AMC with a packed, eager crowd on a Sunday night).  You're struck by this in particular during the film's early third, when you realize what an important role she played during her years with the ACLU, defending women's rights throughout the 1970's, something oftentimes overlooked in the era of "Notorious RBG" where the Supreme Court Justice feels more famous for her diminutive size and witty dissents from the bench.  Ginsburg's legacy is never in-doubt in RBG, but it feels like they aren't willing to explore it at more than a surface-level.  The film, as a result, never amounts to more than fluff, albeit enjoyable fluff, and while Ginsburg certainly deserves the level of hero-worship it provides, it doesn't have anything meaningful to say about her legacy or the Court's legacy in an increasingly partisan era for the bench.

The film's most interesting moments, in my opinion, are in the first third.  Such recent, forgotten history oftentimes requires repeating for younger audiences, and even though I felt relatively familiar with Ginsburg's career, there were a few nuggets here-and-there that felt particularly compelling and new (I liked hearing from her fellow female law colleagues or high school friends, understanding how this shy, introverted girl from Brooklyn managed to overcome so many odds through the power of her intellect).  The interviews with her children were particularly compelling in the trepidation they have about describing their mother.  You get the understanding that Ruth might have been "the tough parent" between she and her husband Marty, and held her children to high-standards.  There's a lot of love in the interviews with her son and daughter, but a nervousness that either reads as being uncomfortable in-front-of-the-camera or perhaps as not wanting to frame their mother in a perfect light.  This was fascinating to me in a way that not as much of the rest of the film was (even the conservatives seem to want to put a halo on Ginsburg), and as I'm always interested at getting to the root of the conversation, even with proper heroes, I wanted more of what it was like for them growing up, not to demonize Ginsburg but to perhaps give us a sense of her private world.

Because the film in many respects mirrors Ginsburg's attitude toward a curious public.  Progressive, filled with hope, but matter-of-fact and distant.  Ginsburg's that rare public figure that has had such a storied career you can break out the "Greatest Hits" and still leave some of the audience's favorites off-the-menu, but it never moves beyond that.  The talking heads feel particularly disjointed, like a hodgepodge casually-selected by the film's directors in a rush to get this to the screen, rather than taking their time to create something truly special and standing about Ginsburg.  Why, for example, are we only hearing from Sen. Orrin Hatch about the hearings, and not say, the Chairman Joe Biden (it's impossible for me to believe that he wouldn't have wanted to do this, considering this is Liberal Red Meat and he's clearly considering a 2020 run)?  Why not show Sen. Dianne Feinstein & Carol Moseley-Braun, both of whom had just joined the Senate Judiciary Committee when Ginsburg was before them in the wake of Anita Hill?  They touch briefly on her friendship with Antonin Scalia, but what about other justices-where was conversation with John Paul Stevens, who saw her as both an attorney and a colleague, or Sandra Day O'Connor, who was forever intertwined with Ginsburg by gender but distanced from her by judicial philosophy?  What of Merrick Garland and the constitutional crisis that rocked the court two years ago?  The film spends so much time featuring reaction shots to Ginsburg watching her caricature on Saturday Night Live for the first time, why not get Kate McKinnon to do a talking head, or better yet, have her meet Ginsburg?  It feels frequently like there is something holding back the filmmakers-was it budget?  Access to Ginsburg herself?  Limits in what they were allowed to show or say about the famed justice?  The film as a result feels incomplete, like we're getting a tertiary look at what should be a grand, definitive picture of Ginsburg.

As a result, other than the earlier catalog of her work as a law student and attorney, the film's only other real calling card is the examination of her relationship with Martin Ginsburg, the quintessential supportive husband.  We get very little in terms of a complicated picture of Mr. Ginsburg, either because the filmmakers didn't want to show any bad sides to the promising young tax attorney who became a primary caretaker so that his wife could succeed, or perhaps Marty Ginsburg really was just as wonderful as he always seemed in interviews and speeches.  Either way, his relationship with Ruth was so lovingly featured in the film, it made me excited for what Armie Hammer will do with this performance later this year in On the Basis of Sex, considering Armie Hammer-in-love is easily the best version of the actor.  Marty's death in the film is a tearjerker moment, weirdly the only one in a film with so much hope, and it's clear Ruth cared for him in a way that's uncommon to see in DC marriages.  I just wish that the filmmakers had taken off the kid gloves for the rest of the picture, giving us a fuller, clearer portrait of an important woman and her legacy, rather than just a fan page that feels like a scrapbook.

Chasing Coral (2017)

Film: Chasing Coral (2017)
Director: Jeff Orlowski
Oscar History: No nominations
Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

Environmental documentaries at this point follow a routine pattern.  Unless they're narrated by David Attenborough, they will proceed with the same formula of the earth being in a rough spot, the environment dying either due to climate change or corporate/political antipathy or occasionally just downright greed, and then we are met with a message to go out and start fighting if you want this beautiful world to continue.  No one makes a documentary about Siberian Tigers and in the end we find out that all of the tigers are safe and we don't have to worry about them anymore.  In particular with Chasing Coral, as we see a magical underwater kingdom taken down by an increasingly warm planet, this formula is capitalized, though I will admit it isn't quite as fascinating as it probably could be, and in no way comes close to the majesty of Orlowski's sister documentary to this movie, Chasing Ice.

The film is centered upon the bleaching events that have taken place in coral reefs across the planet, due almost exclusively to the warming of the oceans (as a result of climate change).  The film follows a team of scientists as they wish to photo-document the changes that occur over time in reefs across the planet, showing the destruction of ecosystems that hundreds of species are dependent upon for survival.  It is a harrowing film, and difficult to digest.  Watching such destruction, such quick destruction, reminds me of my research on the saiga antelope, a beautiful creature native to Mongolia that is being wiped out in staggeringly quick time due almost exclusively to an epizootic that has killed off over half the species in the past decade (they're so cute and special, it literally gets me to cry every time someone mentions it...like I'm actually crying right now as I go down a Google wormhole trying to find hope for them and part of me wants to just jump on a plane and feed every saiga antelope I can find medicine).  Suffice it to say, it's hard to watch, and will get you extremely emotional, and for the love of god do not bring up the saiga antelope to me unless you want a five-minute conversation of me gushing and then breathlessly wondering "what do we do?"

"What do we do?" is a question that hangs so ferociously around Chasing Coral, but feels like a coda onto the film.  The movie spends very little on the call-to-action moments of the picture, perhaps an indication that this is so critical the filmmakers have given up hope, though one has to believe that's not true if they went to all of this trouble to document the picture.  Whereas Chasing Ice set off a movement because it showed in gargantuan photos the depleting ice shelves and wanting to make environmental warriors out of you, Chasing Coral feels like the kind of movie that will make you want to curl up under a blanket and start tweeting every Republican in Congress photos of these depleted coral habitats, with "I told you so" rather than "please help."  It doesn't have the same sense of purpose, and its goals are too loose.  It's also, and I hate to say this about a film that has such an important subject matter (a struggle I always hit when it comes to documentaries), kind of dull.  Watching the coral deplete is tragic, and heartbreaking, but the talking head interviews feel pretty rote and the plot of the film, particularly when inevitably a camera breaks or some obstacle is overcome, is standard-fare.

All-in-all, the only thing to recommend this film, other than as an introduction to climate change (it'd be a good one to show relatives who are not seeing the dire straights of their SVU's or support of the coal industry over Christmas) is the photography, both breathtaking and tragic.  Watching these walls of color and life depleted before your eyes is a sobering experience, knowing how difficult it will be to ever regain such creations.  Humanity has a love-hate relationship with nature, destroying it for our own pleasures, but always in awe of its majesty.  Watching this, knowing its permanence, it's hard to imagine how cruelly history will judge this generation, knowing that it all happened on our watch.  The film tags onto its last five minutes a standard-issue "this is how we fix it," but it doesn't feel organic, either because this is a problem so huge it'll take a miracle to reverse or because the filmmakers assume the audience knows what to do with the feelings of inadequacy provided in the picture.  Either way, it feels like a failed experiment, a horror movie with an ambiguous but dour ending.