Buck is a documentary about real-life horse whisperer Buck Brannaman, an exceedingly grounded and gentle man who knows everything about horse behavior. But the movie is more about human behavior, about the disturbing crucible that formed Buck, and about what we can learn about people from their handling of horses.
Fortunately, Director Cindy Meehl realized that she had a great story and got out of the way. The understated guitar-based score never becomes melodramatic. And Meehl never lets the admiring talking heads elevate Buck to more than what he is, which is remarkable enough. This movie could have easily been painfully corny or pretentious and is neither. I’d happily view it again today.
Buck’s own background is so nasty that it would totally unremarkable for him to have emerged mean or emotionally crippled – and he is the farthest from either. With some help from loving people, Buck has chosen to become something different from his apparent fate. In this way, Buck could be a companion piece to Mike Leigh’s Another Year.
Buck was shortlisted for the Best Documentary Oscar. You can rent Buck from Amazon, YouTube and Google Play or buy it from iTunes.
Sandy also publishes the weekly e-newsletter This Week on TCM, in which he reviews the most significant choices on Turner Classic Movies. He doesn’t write about every movie on TCM, but he touches on several each day. And this is not a quick scan of the weekly classic film menu – each email runs to up to 6,000 words.
Every Sunday morning, while The Wife pours over the New York Times, I’m scanning Sandy’s email to see if TCM is featuring a film I had overlooked or need to revisit. For example, I DVRed the 1937 They Won’t Forget, which I had never seen, only because of Sandy’s description of Lana Turner’s entrance. Worth it.
Earlier this year, I finally got around to the 1936 classic Dodsworth, only because Sandy recommended it. Dodsworth rewarded me with remarkable performances from Walter Huston, Mary Astor and Ruth Chatterton. (Familiarity with Dodsworth is also central to understanding the documentary Scandal: The Trial of Mary Astor, because Astor channeled her Dodsworth character during her testimony at the notorious child custody trial.)
Sandy’s regular readers always wait for the weekly use of the word “oeuvre ” and the mention of the “ubiquitous Michael Curtiz”. Sandy is the kind of film writer who can use the word “mendacity” about a movie (All About Eve) OTHER than Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.
It’s difficult to decide which is the biggest value add in This Week on TCM – Sandy’s usually perfect movie taste or his capsulized commentary, enlivened with Grouchoesque quips. Here’s a taste:
Story of Seabiscuit: This does not remotely resemble the true story of Seabiscuit; in fact, it should be entitled Nothing Like the True Story of Seabiscuit.
Manchurian Candidate: A ludicrous premise: the Russians want to put a puppet in the White House, whom they can maneuver and control – hey, wait a minute.
Gaslight: Joseph Cotton is an old friend who senses something rotten in the state of Denmark (which means he has a strong sense of smell, since this takes place in Victorian era England).
The Searchers: John Ford’s magnum opus and the apogee (or apotheosis if you prefer an even more pretentious “ap” word) of his Western genre films.
Doctor Zhivago : My least favorite of Lean’s well known films, which I find ponderous and unwieldy (or if you prefer, slow and boring). I came to CA to get away from snow, so why spend over 3 hours looking at it. Then again, you can spend all that time looking at Julie Christie, which almost makes it worth it. This film was a huge hit and mine is a minority opinion, but is there anyone in America who isn’t sick of Lara’s Theme?
Detour: Talk about femme fatales – Ann Savage (no name better fit an actress) is the fataliest of all femmes. Ms. Savage more than makes up for the flimsy sets and if she doesn’t give you nightmares, nobody will (whenever I wake up screaming in the night soaked in sweat, and Harriet asks what’s wrong I just say “Ann Savage”).
Ingmar Bergman’s Passion of Anna: Moving and powerful, under no circumstances should you watch this film unless you are prepared to hit the emotional depths of human existence (I’m not sure what that means, but don’t have a bottle of pills nearby when you are watching).
Buffalo Bill and the Indians or Sitting Bull’s History Lesson: (Paul) Newman and director Robert Altman were at the height of their respective powers when they teamed up to make this can’t miss film. But miss it did and by miles.
The Window: Young Bobby Driscoll goes out on the fire escape to sleep on a sweltering NYC summer night and through a neighbor’s window witnesses a murder. Bobby is proverbial boy who cried Sandy Wolf (I use that line every time this movie airs and can’t help myself).
Scarlet Pimpernel: Whenever I see this title, I think of pumpernickel bread, which you can’t get in Northern CA (at least I have never seen it).
The Longest Day: BTW, an astute and erudite reader correctly informed me that the “D” in D-Day stands for “Day”. How stupid is that – what does Day Day mean? I would call it T-Day for The Day or even I-Day for Invasion Day.
Henry V: All I know about Henry V is that he came after Henry IV (not sure where O Henry came from – and I’m talking about the candy bar and not the author).
Red Badge of Courage: This was deemed an utter failure upon its release and caused director John Huston grief (or as much grief he could sustain between cavorting and carousing) .
Lolita: Shelley Winters, as Lolita’s Mom, is as annoying as ever (which is as annoying as any human being can possibly be) but she is in fact somewhat empathetic and plays her role well (Shelley could do annoying in her sleep and I’m sure she was annoying even when she was asleep).
Sandy’s taste in exceptional, but not perfect. We differ on the fourth and fifth greatest Hitchcock films, and I’m about to set him straight on his under appreciation of Peckinpah’s The Getaway.
Sandy is also the father of filmmaker Matt Wolf, the accomplished documentarian behind:
Wild Combination, the critically praised biodoc of the influential musician Arthur Russell. (Included with Amazon Prime.)
Teenage, an especially insightful look at the emergence of teenage culture, surprisingly recent in American culture. Teenage aired on PBS. (Included with Amazon Prime.)
Bayard and Me, the undertold story of Bayard Russell’s key role in the Civil Rights movement as a gay man in the 50s and 60s.
Recorder: The Marion Stokes Project, about a woman who recorded 30 years of TV, 24 hours per day, and left a 70,000 videotape tape-archive of American culture reflected by television. (Streamable on Amazon and iTunes.)
Spaceship Earth, the soon to be released 2020 Sundance hit about Biosphere 2, the 1991 scientic and social experiment where a team moved into a model replica of our planet’s ecosystem.
Matt Wolf was already an NYU film school grad when Sandy started his role at Cinequest, but Sandy takes some credit for some of Matt’s love of movies. Back in the VCR era, Sandy recorded classic films one at a time, and then played the collection at family movie nights.
On the red carpet of the Tribeca Film Festival for one of Matt’s premieres, Sandy Wolf heard a publicist summoning “Mr. Wolf, over here, please.” Sandy’s proudest moment came when he realized they were calling Matt.
How does Cinequest fill its slate of documentary features each year? For the past two decades, Sandy Wolf, a now-retired attorney, has been volunteering to find the documentaries that premiere at Cinequest.
Back in 2002, Wolf’s recommendation gotSpellbound into the festival. The story of eight teenagers competing for the national spelling bee championship, Spellbound went on to become a national art house hit, and Wolf earned some major cred.
Each year, Wolf screens the 250 documentary features that have been submitted to Cinequest by filmmakers. Wolf then submits a top ten and a second twenty recommendations, along with his comments, to Cinequest Director of Programming and Associate Director Mike Rabehl. (Rabehl himself screens every Cinequest submission, including documentaries,) Rabehl has the final say, but he agrees with most of Wolf’s recommendations.
“You rarely see a bad documentary,” says Wolf. “Although there are a lot of mediocre ones.”
How does one actually watch 250 movies? From each July though November, Wolf watches movies in the morning, until he takes a break for lunch. After a visit to the neighborhood coffee joint, he resumes until dinnertime. But he reserves the evening for his own movie choices, not festival screeners.
“Mike Rabehl tells me not to make it a job”, but Wolf thinks its goes best with this regimen.
The slate of documentaries at Cinequest is usually quite rich. Here are some of my favorites from recent Cinequests, all of which are are now available to stream:
The Brainwashing of My Dad: When TV changes not just opinions, but mood and personality, too. Amazon, Vudu, YouTube, Google Play.
Meet the Hitlers: Wouldn’t you change YOUR name? Amazon, iTunes, Vudu.
There Will Be No Stay: In a society with capital punishment, someone must perform the executions. iTunes, Vudu, YouTube, Google Play.
Wolf saved me from a big mistake at the 2019 Cinequest. I had decided to pass on screening Clownvets because it looked too sappy for my notoriously jaded taste. But I watched it on Wolf’s recommendation, and I’m very glad that I did. Clownvets turned out to be well-constructed and surprisingly powerful.
This year Wolf tipped me off to The Quicksilver Chronicles, which is also my own favorite of the 2020 Cinequest documentaries.
Kate Woods in THE QUICKSILVER CHRONICLES. Photo courtesy of Cinequest.
The documentary The Quicksilver Chronicles introduces us to the 60ish brother and sister Kemp and Kate Woods, who live a bohemian existence in a ghost town that they have to themselves. In other times, Kemp and Kate might have been labeled eccentrics or Free Thinkers.
Kate is raucously voluble. She is never without a cigarette, espouses her love of Mexican ballads and has an opinion on everything. Her friend, photographer Tom Chargin, has been taking pictures of Kate for decades.
Most of Kemp and Kate’s lives seem to involve dogs and cigarettes. The Quicksilver Chronicles is only 75 minutes long, which gives the filmmakers the freedom to pace the film slowly – that allows us to settle in and let these characters and their lifestyle wash over us. Just when you think we’re just watching these two putter around in the boonies, a major life event DOES happen.
They are living in Idria, California, population 2. This is the site of the long-defunct New Idria Mine, once America’s second biggest mercury mine (after San Jose’s New Almaden Quicksilver mine), In the California Gold Rush, mercury was used to extract gold from ore. There’s a mountainful of naturally occurring mercury at Idria, and the disturbances from the mining have made this a Superfund site.
As the crow flies, Idria is remarkably close to Silicon Valley. But, to get there, you first have to drive the 45 minutes to Hollister and then ANOTHER 2 hours past the tiny crossroads of Paicines, Panoche and Mercey Hot Spings.
Documentarians Ben Guez and Aleksandra Kulak shot The Quicksilver Chronicles over four years of visits to New Idria.
Cinequest hosts the US premiere of The Quicksilver Chronicles, my favorite documentary at this year’s festival.
The documentaryTheremin Magicexplores that most weirdly unworldly of musical instruments, the Theremin. Documentarian Cressandra Thibodeaux took advantage of a global Theremin festival (who knew?) to film the world’s top five Theremin players.
The five are a diverse lot, and their mastery of the instrument is astonishing. Because the instrument is played by waving one’s fingers in the air next to it, the performances are visually somewhere between conducting an orchestra and dancing ballet. At the very end there’s a scene with an entire classroom full of Theremin players.
If you are interested in music and haven’t dived deeply into the Theremin, this is all interesting. Cinequest hosts the world premiere of Theremin Magic.
JOHN PINETTE: YOU GO NOW. Photo cpurtesy of Cinequest
John Pinette: You Go Now, the biodoc of the comedian, plumbs beneath Pinette’s cherubic skin for insights into what sparked his humor – and his obesity. Let’s just say that his childhood was not the most nurturing.
The clips of Pinette’s performances are very funny, and the ones from his youth illustrate his remarkable gift at mimicry. Pinette himself thought that he had inherited genes that predisposed him to addiction, but he was clearly also born with immense talent.
Cinequest hosts the world premiere of John Pinette: You Go Now. It’s only the second time in Cinequest’s 30-year history that an open submission has been selected as the festival’s opening night film.
JAY SEBRING…CUTTING TO THE TRUTH. Photo courtesy of Cinequest.
Jay Sebring…Cutting to the Truth attacks the indignity of a person being remembered, not for his significant achievements, but for his victimhood. Jay Sebring was, along with his friend Sharon Tate, one of the Manson Family’s murder victims. But Sebring invented – by himself – the men’s hairstyling industry. And as what we now call an influencer, he led American men out of the Brylcreem Age.
This documentary is directed by Anthony DiMaria, the son of Sebring’s sister. The film is remarkably well-sourced, with Sebring’s sister, his best Navy buddy, his first wife, his first hair-cutting partner and Hollywood pals like actor Stuart Whitman. There’s even footage with Sebring’s first celebrity customer – Vic Damone (!), who introduced him to the Rat Pack and other crooners like Paul Anka; actors like Steven McQueen, Paul Newman and Henry Fonda soon followed.
Oddly, we meet Sebring himself through an industrial film he commissioned; this is as stilted as any of the industrial films of the 60s, so we don’t get any excitement coming from Sebring, only his drive and passion for hair styling. But that’s OK, because we get a sense of Sebring’s vitality and charisma through the people who knew him.
It took a substantial time it took to uncover the actual but unimaginable facts of the Manson Family’s murderous lunacy. Jay Sebring sadly reminds us that, during this period, the stories of the victims were sullied, when even mainstream media feasted on lurid speculation. Jay Sebring busts up those urban legends, adds some under-reported facts about Sebring’s actions during the Manson attack and a glimpse into what could have been a future with Sharon Tate.
Cinequest hosts the world premiere of Jay Sebring…Cutting to the Truth.
In the thought-provoking documentary We Believe in Dinosaurs, filmmakers Clayton Brown and Monica Long Ross introduce us to Ark Encounter, a Kentucky attraction with a full-size replica of Noah’s Ark. Explicitly pro-creationism and anti-evolution, Ark Encounter is filled with interpretive exhibits that illustrate the Biblical story of Noah as historical fact, kind of a fundamentalist, evangelical Smithsonian. Ark Encounter is 45 miles from its sister attraction, the Creation Museum.
There’s a lot to think about – and even marvel about – here. First of all, the Ark Encounter is an impressive spectacle. In Genesis, God directed Noah to build the ark to be 300 cubits long, 50 cubits wide, and 30 cubits high. That means that this thing is a football field-and-a-half long and over four stories high. We get to meet and observe the technicians and artists as they build the animatronic Noah family and the reproduced animals.
The bigger story here, though, is the massive investment in anti-science propaganda. To justify their literal acceptance of Biblical content that is inconsistent with scientific fact, these folks behind the Ark Encounter believe that they need to discredit science itself. And they’re not just defending the literal occurrence of every Bible story, but also the chronology of Bishop Ussher who, in the mid 1600s, calculated that the earth was created in 4004 B.C. That means that the Ark Encounter aggressively explains that the Earth and the human race, despite fossil evidence, are each 6,000 years old – and that dinosaurs lived alongside humans (and voyaged on the Ark). It also means that they seek to discredit the Theory of Evolution and the scientific method itself (while enjoying its byproducts – vaccines, for example).
When you distill their beliefs, these neo-creationists are essentially turbanless Taliban. Just for perspective, after suppressing Galileo’s 1615 discovery of the earth-centered solar system, the Catholic Church started backpedaling in 1718. That means that 300 years ago, even the reactionary Church decided not to double down on denying scientific discoveries.
And what about the scientists? And people of faith who accept science? We Believe in Dinosaurs
brings us the perspectives of Ark Encounter opponents, most notably a
geologist, and a former neo-creationist, both native Kentuckians.
There’s also a local Baptist minister, who thinks that people of faith
can also accept science.
One of the stunning aspects of We Believe in Dinosaurs is the unexpected David-and-Goliath story. We might expect the science-deniers to be outmatched. But the folks with most primitive beliefs are the creative masters. Anti creationists are the Goliath, supported by hordes of believers, massive private investment, capacity for technical wizardry and even state support. On the other hand, scientists are not often skilled in or equipped with tools for political persuasion and mass communications. The pro-science folks are, like John the Baptist, a lone voice in the wilderness, losing the optics battle.
Brown and Long Ross have a point of view (that science is good), but they don’t make the Ark Encounter people ridiculous. We directly hear the Ark Encounter leadership’s public pronouncements, and we meet the earnest and often sympathetic folks who are using their considerable talents to build and fill the attraction. Brown and Long Ross let us hear from both sides and let us connect our own dots. Watch the closing credits to the very end to get the subjects’ unfiltered view of the filmmakers. And wait for the film’s super-creepy money shot – that of an animatronic figure reflecting on the fate of others.
I saw We Believe in Dinosaurs at its world premiere at the San Francisco International Film Festival (SFFILM). We Believe in Dinosaurs can be streamed from Amazon, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.
Pauline Kael in WHAT SHE SAID: THE ART OF PAULINE KAEL
What She Said: The Art of Pauline Kael is the remarkably thorough and insightful biodoc of the iconic film critic Pauline Kael and her drive for relevance.
Documentarian Rob Garver has sourced What She Said is well-sourced with the memories of Kael’s colleagues, rivals and intimates. Garver’s portrait of Kael helps us understand her refusal to conform to social norms as she basically invented the role of a female film critic and what today we might call a national influencer on cinema.
Of course, one of Kael’s defining characteristics was her all-consuming love of movies, a trait shared by many in this film’s target audience. Fittingly, Garver keeps things lively by illustrating Kael’s story with clips from the movies she loved and hated. Garver’s artistry in composing this mosaic of evocative movie moments sets What She Said apart from the standard talking head biodocs.
Kael was astonishingly confident in her taste (which was not as snooty as many film writers). For the record, I think Kael was right to love Mean Streets, Band of Outsiders, Bonnie and Clyde, and, of course, The Godfather. It meant something to American film culture that she championed those films. She was, however, wrong to love Last Tango in Paris. She was also right to hate Limelight, Hiroshima Mon Amour and The Sound of Music. But Kael was just being a contrarian and off-base to hate Lawrence of Arabia and Shoah.
Kael was by necessity an intrepid self-promoter and filled with shameless contradictions. She famously dismissed the auteur theory but sponsored the bodies of work of auteurs Scorsese, Peckinpah, Coppola and Altman. She loved – even lived – to discover and support new talent.
Most of the people we like and admire possess at least some bit of selflessness and empathy. Kael’s daughter Gina James says that Kael turned her lack of self awareness into triumph,. This observation, of course, cuts both ways.
I saw What She Said: The Art of Pauline Kael at the 2019 San Francisco Jewish Film Festival. It’s now playing in theaters in San Francisco and Berkeley.
The documentary Honeyland is about a fiftyish Macedonian woman named Hatidze, who lives in an otherwise abandoned mountain village. She cares for her mother, who is blind and bedridden, and she clambers over rocky mountains to collect honeycombs and bees; she sells the honey in a nearby city for a living.
Suddenly, a thoroughly disorganized family moves in next door, sprawling litter and rowdy kids across the previously serene landscape. The father, Hussein, thinks that he will strike it rich raising cattle and bees; the fact that it’s not that easy utterly escapes him. Hussein is foolish, makes the lazy choice at every opportunity and blames the resultant misadventures on others.
Despite Hatidze’s best efforts, her mother’s health declines and Hussein’s self-made disasters continue. That’s all that happens in Honeyland. As my longtime readers will know, I’m more patient with the slowly paced, indie cinéma vérité than the next guy; but but I lost interest in Honeyland. The only reason I watched Honeyland to the end was because The Wife wanted to see if something more interesting was going to happen.
In fact, the only reason that I’m writing about this film at all is that it has somehow been Oscar-nominated for both the Best International Film and the Best Documentary, which I find baffling.
Reportedly, the filmmakers lived in tent in the remote village and filmed Honeyland over four years.
Hatidze is sweet, decent and fully aligned with popular values of sustainability. She has a sense of humor and some measure of snaggle-toothed charm. The film is only one hour 26 minutes, but it seems longer. I streamed Honeyland, but I don’t know why you should.
