Tag Archives: documentary

An Actor’s Life (Film Thoughts: Val)

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‘Val,’ a documentary about Val Kilmer is quite an interesting watch, and I had no idea it would be. It celebrates the actor’s life of Val Kilmer, and it benefits from a lot of video footage taken by Kilmer himself. As an actor who became popular during the 80s and 90s, Kilmer also had thousands of hours of footage from his experiences, so he had ample material to present from his varied filmography. I of course know him as Iceman from ‘Top Gun’ and he says that’s his most popular role, with people calling him that characters’a name everywhere. But I did not know that he was a Juilliard-trained actor. As a natter of fact, he still is its younger enrollee in its history. Kilmer is also a little bit of a method actor, and you can sense how his roles envelope his life as he shoots them. The film is bittersweet – he now suffers from a medical condition that makes him unable to speak clearly – his voice is compromised so he has son do a lot of the film’s narration. It has a little bit of a sense of what might have been – as an actor he has accomplished a lot but makes you think if there will be more.

Human Chef (Film Thoughts: Roadrunner)

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I know Anthony Bourdain was one of the more popular ‘celebrity chefs’ (he hated that term) but really the only think that kind of interested me about him is that he is a big fan of Jollibee and of teh halo-halo desert – so he holds a certain cache for some Filipinos (that’s probably the same reason why I ignore him) For sure, I have his CNN show in passing, but I was never really a devoted follower. But I have to say that Morgan Neville has captured his essence in his documentary about him, ‘Roadrunner’ and after watching him, I most certainly have a different appreciation for Bourdain the person. I even empathize with him.

And he is not an easy character to love. He is flawed – an addict, but he possesses a lot of charisma that made everyone love him instantly, and you felt right away that he might and could be your best friend. It’s a tragic story, of course, but the film manages to celebrate most of what makes him tick by focusing on a lot of what makes him very human.

The Laws Against Us (Film Thoughts: The Legend of The Underground()

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For the month of June, since it is Pride month, every film I wrote about has been a gay film, or a film with some kind of gay sensibility. So I think it is just fitting that i close out the month with a film that evokes the spirit of why we should celebrate Pride. Giselle Bailey and Nneka Onuorah’s ‘The Legend Of The Underground’ is about gay men in Nigeria. Nigera is still one of those countries with serious anti-gay laws. If you get caught ‘being gay’ there, you could be subject to fourteen years in jail. But, really, what does ‘being gay; constitute? In the documentary, we see, among others, stories of men who were arrested after being accused of being in a ‘gay party.’ There was a viral video with one of the accused saying, ‘what did I do? I did not get caught (sic).’ The grammatical error may have been pronounced, but the oppression is as clear. The trials of the men arrested was delayed – obviously, the prosecutors have a flimsy case – and it shows the corruption that permeates in the country,

It’s a very involving watch, and makes you realize that in some parts of the world, lives are stake just because peopel want to be themselves. You realize no one is free until everyone is free.

Wonder Wanders (Film Thoughts: Wonder Boy)

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‘Wonder Boy’ is quite an absorbing and touching documentary. I thought it was a fluff piece about Balmain designer Olivier Rousteing -and at times, it is that – but it is also a portrait of a young man searching for his identity. He is somewhat of a wonder kid – at the young age of 35 he is the creative director for the House of Balmain. But his success cannot hide a lot of sadness – he was adopted as a baby to an all-white family. He has gone through the process of trying to find out more about his blood parents, and the film captures the process. He finds out, for example, that his mom was fifteen years old when she was pregnant (‘she was a child,’ he exclaims through tears) although by the end there are still questions (he never connects with her) Nevertheless the film takes you to his sensitive journey, and you will be riveted – and touched.

T & T (Film Thoughts: Truman & Tennessee)

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It seemed like a great idea. Director Lisa Immordino Vreeland was working on a documentary on Truman Capote when she added Tennessee Williams’ story in the mix. Both writers have parallelisms in their lives and this made for s perfect match. Zachary Quinto (as Williams) and Jim Parsons (as Capote) narrate words credit to the authors in voice overs and interspersed with clips from both their interviews with David Frost, I could see a glimpse on what made these two tick. But we never really get a. full picture of each, and int he end, I felt short sighted.Though I understand that wasn’t probably the point of the film, someone not too familiar with both subjects may be lost in the mix.

Her Name Is Rita (Film Thoughts: Rita Moreno Just A Girl Who Decided To Go For It)

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I thought I already knew a lot about Rita Moreno, but after seeing the documentary ‘Rita Moreno: Just A Girl Who Decided To Go For It,’ turns out I knew diddly squat. I have to be honest that at times I look at her as a poor man’s Chita Rivera, but of course she isn’t. She is a trailblazer and broke a lot of barriers for Latina women. This film shows us all of that, and more. First of all, much has been said about her love affair with Marlon Brando, but I did not know that he used to abuse her physically. How she survived that is already a monumental achievement. And of course, she is the first Latina woman to win an Academy acting award. But if I have to be totally honest, I first knew of her from ‘The Electric Company,’ which I used to watch every day when I was a kid (‘hey you guuuyyysss’) But above all, she seems to be a wonderful person and deserves all the accolades she could get.

Titanic Princess (Film Thoughts: The Last Cruise, HBO Max)

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The cruise industry has been hit hard by the pandemic, and I don’t really know when it will recover from it. And I have been vocal about my love for cruising so it makes me very interested in seeing ‘The Last Cruise,’ a documentary on HBO Max about The Diamond Princess and how it was affected during the early days of the pandemic. It is fascinating, and in some ways similar to the voyage of the Titanic.

The documentary is mostly done through personal video recollections fo some passengers, and even in its scant forty minutes, is pretty powerful. It shows the difference from the points of view of passengers and of the crew, showing the disparity of how they were both treated by the cruise line.

The voyage starts nice enough withs tops in Asian cities in Hong Kong and Vietnam. But somewhere along the way, the ship gets the virus, and when they finally are to disembark in Yokohama, they are told they couldn’t – they have to quarantine for at least fourteen days. That’s when the horror starts, as passengers (as well as infected crew members) are trapped in their cabins. You see the harrowing experiences, the fear as they look out and see people going into the ship in hazmat suits. Meanwhile, the crew has to continue working and serving the passengers, albeit on an abbreviated level. You can also see how the crew was treated. a group of Indonesian dish washers hand together and send a SOS video.

It will make you think twice of the inequality. I know at some point I will cruise again, and these images will haunt me forever.

As Video Times Go By (Movie Thoughts: The Last Blockbuster)

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Once upon a time there were video rental stores…that’s basically the premise and point of ‘The Last Blockbuster,’ which is a film about…the last remaining Blockbuster store in Bend, Oregon. Gen Xers like me will look at teh film fondly, more for nostalgia purposes. My generation grew up with watching movies on video – from Betamax to VHS to DVDs and Blu-Ray – and this film will jog our memory to. different time when renting films was a vital part of our lives. I personally was drawn more to mom-and-pop video places – blockbuster movies never interested me – so I wasn’t really a Blockbuster store kind of guy, but I couldn’t help but relate to most of the talking heads here reminiscing. It’s kind of ironic that I saw this film on Netflix, which is the thing that most people say killed Blockbuster (that wasn’t really the case, as the documentary explained) but I guess we’ll just charge that to the evolution of life.

Time and Tide (Film Thoughts: Time/I Am Greta)

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TIME AND TIDE

Now that we have Joe Biden as our President-elect, maybe finally our leader can address certain issues that have been neglected by the current administration. I recently saw two documentaries about two big issues that are country is facing.

Garrett Bradley’s ‘Time’ addresses systematic racism. It centers upon the story of Fox Rich, a woman whose husband has been incarcerated. It shows her plight in raising her six sons because of an error in judgement. As a young couple in desperation, she and her husband robbed a credit union, and they got caught. She accepted a plea deal and served three and a half years in prison, while her husband did not, and was judged to serve sixty years without parole. She highlight the systemic racism for black and brown people – white counterparts would probably get a slap in the wrist for a similar crime.   The film is told from black and white videos that Fox has recorded over the years. This is a most touching film, and will open your eyes to the fact that behind these crimes and prisoners are human beings.

And human beings are affected by other issues, and one of the biggest ones is climate change. On the forefront of this is Greta Thunberg. This fifteen-year-old made waves with her September 2019 United Nations speech where she addressed this issue in front of world leaders, and her voice and message reverberated everywhere. This film gives us a lingering glimpse of the young person here, starting from when she started a strike in the Swedish Parliament House as her name gets more widely known. It shows her meeting French President Macron and the Pope. It shows the movement that she started, and how young people are inspired to engage int his issue because of her. It made me cringe how right wingers have demonized her – she is such a confident unapologetic figure that in some ways she is an easy target. I bet you will get out of the film admiring her more than you already have.

It Was Not Exactly Paris (Film Thoughts: This Is Paris)

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Can this be true? Am I really watching a documentary about Paris Hilton? And to make matters even worse, can I admit that this film is actually (gulp) good? I mean, 2020 has brought a lot of surprises in all our lives, but I didn’t really think I expected this to happen.

Well, it turns out that it’s true, Alexandra Dean has previously directed a documentary about Hedy Lamar, so now she has set her sights on Paris Hilton. I have to admit I only know fleeting things about Hilton – I never saw her reality show ‘The Simple Life,’ though I admit I did see her sex tape. I kind of ignored here during her height, but that’s just me ignoring anything that’s popular and hyped. I know that she was famous for doing nothing, although I realize know she does a lot of things although I have no idea if she does them well- if she is really a competent deejay, I ‘ll never know.

The documentary is pretty straightforward, and when it started, I thought it was going a by-the-numbers glamour bio. When she first hinted that she was suffering from PTSD, I initially rolled my eyes. It’s kind of hard to feel sorry for her after she shows you all her material things. But then the bombshell revelation came – she was abused at some reform school in Utah, and has suffered from that, traumatized from her experience. And just to prove that all is real, she even enlisted stories from women who were in the same school the same time she was there. I have to say that my perception of her did change, and her ‘poor little rich girl’ act became more authentic after. Dean loves her subject, and presented it to the world, maybe not warts and all, but certainly less photoshopped.