Reviews - Page 73

Giving you our points of view on the latest docs in release and on the circuit.

John Houston’s ‘Atautsikut’ Should Not Be Left Behind

Atautsikut, Leaving None Behind (Canada, 60 min.) Dir. John Houston How do communities de-colonize? How do people free themselves from economic oppression? What happens when they succeed? In John Houston’s new film, Atautsikut, Leaving None Behind, the story of how the Inuit of Nunavik embraced a cooperative movement that changed their lives is skillfully recounted. In community after community, they invested in themselves and their neighbours and eventually created locally run businesses – commercial fisheries, fuel supplies, craft productions as well as retail – that employ their own people. The cooperative movement is shown, through sympathetic interviews by Houston of the region’s elders,

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Denise Ho Doc Sings with the Power of a Dissident’s Voice

Denise Ho: Becoming the Song (USA, 83 min.) Dir. Sue Williams The voice of a dissident sings loud and clear in Denise Ho: Becoming the Song. This upbeat portrait of art and activism chronicles the career of Hong Kong Cantopop star Denise Ho. From being the first mainstream female pop star to come out publicly as gay in Hong Kong in 2012 when LGBTQ rights came under attack, to being blacklisted by the Chinese government for her participation in the Umbrella Movement protests, Ho puts her celebrity to use in order to fight an unjust regime. Her voice is one among many as Hongkongers

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Helmut Newton Doc Finds Empowerment Through Drumsticks

Helmut Newton: The Bad and the Beautiful (USA, 93 min.) Dir. Gero von Boehm Only a photographer as daring as Helmut Newton could make roast chicken look sexy. The man sure knew how to photograph a pair of drumsticks. Before Newton set some miniature high heels on chicken legs for Vogue magazine in 2003, he established himself with fierce portraits of women that celebrated their strength through provocative and often erotic images. His other (and perhaps more celebrated) chicken photo (pictured above) features a woman’s hands, clad in Bulgari jewels, butchering a bird with their elegant might. His photographs frequently evoke an interplay between beauty and

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‘Father Soldier Son’ Spends 10 Years in a Military Family

Father Soldier Son (USA, 97 min.) Dir. Leslye Davis, Catrin Einhorn “It’s a lot easier being a platoon sergeant than a single father,” says Sgt. First Class Brian Eisch in Father Soldier Son. Eisch returns from a tour in Afghanistan when the long journey of Father Soldier Son begins. His two sons, Isaac and Joey, are twelve and eight years old, respectively, when he comes home. There are obvious tears as the kids run from their uncle and hug their dad. Tears of love and pride mark the boys’ joy over seeing their dad return safely. Eisch, meanwhile, breaks his soldierly composure and

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‘Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets’ Is Booze-Fuelled Poetry

Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets (USA, 98 min.) Dir. Bill Ross IV, Turner Ross I haven’t been to a bar in four months thanks to this ongoing pandemic. However, as much as the Summer of ’Rona had me itching for a cold beer on a patio, Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets totally killed my buzz. This Sundance sensation by the Ross Brothers (Contemporary Color, Western) offers a booze-fuelled salute to dive bars as the patrons of The Roaring 20s bar on the outskirts of Las Vegas (ish) drink from open to close. The Rosses observe the drinkers’ relationships as they devolve from celebratory camaraderie to bitter resentment.

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‘White Riot’: Dismantling Racism and Bigotry One Concert at a Time

White Riot (UK, 80 mins.) Dir. Rubika Shah Eric Clapton is universally renowned as one of the world’s greatest blues guitarists. What often gets lost in the lore of the iconic musician is that he once held racist views that inadvertently sparked Britain’s biggest civil rights movement, Rock Against Racism. In the spirited documentary White Riot, director Rubika Shah reflects on how a group of ordinary punk rock loving folks took a stance against the anti-immigrant nationalist wave that threatened to drown the United Kingdom. Expanding on her 2017 documentary short White Riot: London, Shah’s feature documentary debut offers a deep dive into the early days of

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‘Blackballed’ Confronts Systemic Racism in the NBA

Blackballed (USA, 12× 8 min.) Dir. Michael Jacobs The ESPN and Netflix co-produced documentary series The Last Dance quenched the thirst many had for sports related content during the pandemic. While that brilliantly constructed series was a nostalgia heavy look at the Chicago Bulls, one of the most dominant teams in sports history, the Quibi series Blackballed focuses its lens on one of the most mismanaged, the Los Angeles Clippers. If The Last Dance was a series that reinforced our love of sports as entertainment, then Blackballed is a sobering reminder of the political side of sports. As director Michael Jacobs notes in the documentary, whether we like to admit

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‘Bread: An Everyday Miracle’ Feeds the COVID-19 Baking Craze

Bread: An Everyday Miracle (Austria, 90 min.) Dir. Harald Friedl One unexpected result of the global coronavirus pandemic is that it transformed Instagrammers everywhere into amateur bakers. Pictures of homemade loaves flooded feeds as carbs out-muscled COVID-19 updates for screen time. One lumpy, misshapen, burnt, or janky loaf followed another. More often than not, they looked downright inedible, but they evoked buoyant olfactory memories of trips to the local bakery. The parade of bread porn provided a buffet of comfort food even if the loaves themselves tasted like good intentions. No doubt capitalizing on the bread bonanza of COVID-19, Hot Docs Ted

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‘John Lewis: Good Trouble’ Is a Timely Call to Action

John Lewis: Good Trouble (USA, 97 min.) Dir. Dawn Porter “I feel luck and blessed that I am serving in our country,” says Congressman John Lewis in Good Trouble. “But there are forces today that are trying to take us back to another time and darken progress. We’ve come so far and made so much progress, but as a nation, we’re not there yet.” Congressional representative and civil rights leader John Lewis receives a timely profile in John Lewis: Good Trouble. This upbeat portrait from Dawn Porter (Bobby Kennedy for President) unpacks the significant life and career of the Representative from Georgia. Good

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‘Hamilton’ Is a Triumph

Hamilton (USA, 160 min.) Dir. Thomas Kail Let’s get the suspense over right away. Hamilton, the genre-busting hip-hop musical about one of America’s Founding Fathers, is a triumph. Thomas Kail’s film documents the original cast (with one minor exception) performing at the Richard Rodgers Theater in 2016, a year after its stunning arrival on Broadway. It offers us a trip back to Obama’s presidency, when it seemed possible to re-imagine history to star members of diverse communities—Blacks, Latinos, Chinese—as key figures in the American Revolution. Those times seem far longer than five years ago, but one of the pleasures of watching Hamilton is

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