film review

Birth of A Star

Mark Weston — Thu, 25 Oct 2018 14:21:32 +0000

Birth of A Star Mark Weston October 25, 2018 - 10:21

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Right now, the entire world seems to be in love with the Bradley Cooper/Lady Gaga vehicle A Star Is Born.

But guess what? There is another film out there that is so indy it is mini-indy – make that micro-mini-indy - and in it, you can witness the actual birth of an actual star. Her name is Casey Killoran. She plays a Staten Island millennial named Marsha Day in a movie called Viral Beauty.

For those of us over 40, that sounds like the title of a medical drama. But the younger crowd will instantly know that it is about our social media and internet age. Marsha Day becomes a social media celebrity when her online quest for a boyfriend goes viral. Marsha is a beautiful young woman who is curvaceous, and thus becomes an icon for real women everywhere and a target for vicious fat-shaming.

The film is formulaic and literally skin deep, as Marsha meets her Prince Charming and struggles to lose thirty pounds to fulfill the contract of her diet product endorsement. And, if the film was made with less panache and a lesser cast, it wouldn’t be worth your time.

Director David Tyson Lam provides a jaunty landscape, both on line in its verite blogging and in its gorgeous depiction of a latter day romance with New York City that goes beyond the boundaries of Manhattan. The music is great and the cast of kookie internet bloggers is hysterically funny – led by the celebrity narration provided by a winning, if too-loud Perez Hilton. And the tuxedo cat Mister Kittsy almost steals the show.

But Viral Beauty will not be remembered for its story, direction, cinematography or commentary on our celebrity culture. Viral Beauty will be known as the film that introduced Casey Killoran to Hollywood and the world. Ms. Killoran employs a Staten Island accent that is so authentic it alone captures a certain type of New York milieu – a working class cousin to the Boston Southy characters made famous by Matt Damon and Ben Affleck in Good Will Hunting. The film essentially charts Ms. Killoran’s character’s make-over from ugly duckling to – ahem, “viral beauty” – but Ms. Killoran is so touchingly real, so full of enthusiasm and joie de vivre that her natural beauty is evident from the first moment to the last. Behind the working class veneer, Ms. Killoran imbues Marsha Day with both impeccable comic timing and a deep emotional intelligence.

In short, Casey Killoran carries this movie, exhibiting a range that more experienced actors rarely achieve. Yes, I am gushing, but I defy you to see this film and not fall head over heels in love with her.

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The De-Animator: Kung Fu Panda 2 & 3 Director Tries Humans, Leaving Viewers with “The Darkest Minds”

Brandon Judell — Fri, 03 Aug 2018 15:32:51 +0000

The De-Animator: Kung Fu Panda 2 & 3 Director Tries Humans, Leaving Viewers with “The Darkest Minds” Brandon Judell August 3, 2018 - 11:32

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I know The Hunger Games. I survived The Hunger Games. And Darkest Minds, you're no Hunger Games.

You're also no Divergent, The Giver, or Never Let Me Go. Well, to be fair, you might be The Giver.

This adaptation of the first book of Alexandra Bracken's bestselling dystopian YA trilogy is the live-action debut for helmer Jennifer Yuh Nelson, who has previously earned cheers for directing computerized pandas, peacocks, and tigers.

With flesh-and-blood creatures, she's not so hot. Of course, she and her cast are saddled with a clumsy, inane script by Chad (Wayward Pines) Hodge that will have you wincing at times. Experiencing his dialogue is sort of like getting a mental colonoscopy without the anesthesia, especially during the clichéd romantic moments and, in fact, nearly whenever an actor opens his mouth:

"You're just a bunch of negative nellies."

But the blame clearly lies with Yuh. Her staging continually lacks imagination. From the action scenes to the car chases to the flashbacks, these could all be excerpts from a film major’s C+ final project, which is sad because the premise is intriguing, and the book, at least what I read of it, is thoroughly engrossing and relevant. (The first three chapters are available free on Amazon. I didn’t feel like spending $6.95 for the whole Kindle experience.)

Then there are the continuity problems. In one scene, our heroine is handcuffed to a cot. After a quick cut, she's strutting down an aisle cuffless. How? Editor Dean (Stranger Things) Zimmerman was apparently asleep at the wheel, but then much of his work here is stupefyingly amateurish. Note the substandard fight scenes in the shopping mall.

The plot commences with over 90% of American youth, starting at age ten, dying from Idiopathic Adolescent Acute Neurodegeneration. The few young survivors apparently have developed extraordinary powers such as psychokinesis, the ability to control minds (e.g. getting adults to shoot themselves), emitting fire from their eyes, and the capability to pass advanced calculus exams. They are very bright. Two even have a prolonged conversation on the benefits of red peppers over green peppers.

Fearful of what these youths are capable of, the President forcibly separates them from their parents a la Trump, placing the teens in camps where they are divided by the color of their brain powers. Orange is the most dangerous. They are then forced to shine the shoes of the guards subjugating them.

After six years of polishing, Ruby Daly (the affable Amandla Stenberg) escapes thanks to the help of Cate (a bland Mandy Moore), who’s with the revolutionary Youth League, which wants to overthrow the government utilizing the kids’ powers. Not trusting her, Ruby jumps into a van with three other young escapees. She immediately falls in love with one of them, Liam Stewart (Harris Dickinson). He responds and gifts her with a pair of tube socks.

The Darkest Minds, of course, doesn't end when it ends, because it's part of a trilogy, and you are supposed to be hooked by its finale to want more and more. And if you are a pre-adolescent, you might just be. If your voice has already changed, you'll probably not be.

For the rest of us, there might be some satisfaction garnered from the fact that one of America's most promising actors, Harris Dickinson, who was brilliant in last year's indie offering, Beach Rats, is finally making some major studio dinero. If you're going to waste talent, you might as well spread the wealth.

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Dance Until You Drop: High-Kicking On Celluloid

Brandon Judell — Fri, 20 Jul 2018 14:00:00 +0000

Dance Until You Drop: High-Kicking On Celluloid Brandon Judell July 20, 2018 - 10:00

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As Nietzsche noted, "We should consider every day lost on which we have not danced at least once." The man who buried God would no doubt add, if still around, that watching a film or two on this most active of the arts a fine substitute.

And to make it easier for those of us who wish to honor Terpsichore by perching instead of pirouetting, The Film Society of Lincoln Center and Dance Films Association will for the 46^th straight year screen full-length documentaries and shorts from 17 countries within 16 joyously distinct programs.

From American tap to Mexican acrobatics, from Marcel Marceau to Spike Jonze, and from Japan to Finland, visual treasures will be unearthed that will make you rethink every aspect of dance that you were once so sure about.

For example, "Bleeding and Burning," a two-minute Canadian short directed by Guillaume Marin, in addition to causing you to ponder, supplies a pulsating finale that just might trigger a few seizures. Featuring the dancers Anabel Gagnon and Victoria Mackenzie -- one fully garbed in red fabric from head to toe, the other in black -- the duo sometimes encase each other, when not bombarding their other half. Heavily edited with a pounding accompaniment, the film, the press notes claim, is "an eerie encounter between a malleable human form and a galaxy unknown." I saw a Middle-Eastern woman fighting for survival against a specter of death. Possibly the same conclusion.

Stephen Featherstone's short, "Stopgap in Stop Motion," highlights how a company that "employs both disabled and non-disabled artists [can] find innovative ways to collaborate." Not unlike what The Apothetae brilliantly demonstrates with the current production of Teenage Dick at the Public Theater, the British Stopgap Dance Company accomplishes on both film and no doubt live.

Cleverly choreographed by Lucy Bennett, the film showcases black-and-white photographs of the troupe situated on a colorful office desk with its pens, pencil sharpener, and eraser. Suddenly the dancers come alive and let loose, eventually breaking out of the boundaries of the snapshots, an appropriate metaphor if there ever was one. Clearly, this work provides evidence that great art thrives on limitations, assumed or otherwise.

Marie Brodeur's A Man of Dance (Un homme de danse) begins with Vincent Warren noting, "I love what Agnes de Mille used to say, 'Dance is written on air.'" He might have added, noting his own career, "It's also written with blood, sweat, and tears."

Mr. Warren was born in Florida in 1938, the youngest of 14 children. At age 10, he saw The Red Shoes, and instantly became infatuated with ballet. He started a scrapbook on dance and began paying for his own lessons with an after-school job. He not unexpectedly wasthe only boy in the class. Then, in his teens, he eventually realized he did not fit into the macho culture he was born into so it was off to New York City to develop his talent and to be gay.

Warren soon became the poet Frank O'Hara’s lover, and remained so until O'Hara’s tragic death on Fire Island. With his world turned topsy-turvy, he eventually wound up with Les Grands Ballets Canadiens, retired at age 40, became a renowned dance teacher, and later a highly recognized dance historian.

"Sometimes I meet people who remember me as a dancer. Maybe some old ladies It's something you have to accept." Vincent Warren

A Man of Dance, which begins with Warren packing up his home in box after box, ends with him in his new, smaller abode with the physical remnants of his life more squeezed together.

Clearly articulating the joys and frustrations that accompany one's career in dance, this biography spotlights the early aching of the joints, the lack of decent salaries, and the strains placed upon romance. It also asks why choreographers do not create pieces for older dancers.

Summing it all up, the grey-haired former star states, "We weren’t rich, but we were happy." Sadly, Mr. Warren won't be at Lincoln Center for the New York premiere of the documentary. He died in 2017, one year after the film was completed.

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How to Waste 93 Minutes of Your Life with Jonathan Rhys Meyers

Brandon Judell — Wed, 18 Jul 2018 20:57:26 +0000

How to Waste 93 Minutes of Your Life with Jonathan Rhys Meyers Brandon Judell July 18, 2018 - 16:57

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Jonathan Rhys Meyers broods well. Better than most, in fact.

His uncontrollable yearning for his family's new hiree (a Jewess in disguise) in The Governess (1998) is an indelible depiction of post-pubescent desire. In Todd Haynes' The Velvet Goldmine (1998), his petulant take on a David-Bowie-esque rocker cemented the film's rep as one of the best narratives on rock. Then there's his Dracula, Elvis, and Henry VIII with their applaudable sneers, plus his obsessed adulterer in Woody Allen's Match Point (2005) whose coin flip brings his comeuppance.

Now in David Zelik Berk's highly cliched, instantly forgettable Middle-Eastern spy caper, Damascus Cover, Meyers goes stoic. What a waste! So wooden is his performance, if you were casting for the part of an elm, you would definitely be stuck between choosing him or the splintery Henry Cavill.

Based on Howard Kaplan's bestselling thriller from 1977, Meyers plays the recently divorced Ari-Ben Zion, an Israeli spy pretending to be a German businessman interested in purchasing Syrian rugs from a merchant who regularly commingles with a group of transplanted Nazis. Ari's task is supposedly to help a Jewish family escape to Israel from Damascus.

The rightfully esteemed John Hurt, in his final film, plays his boss Miki, the head of Mossad, the Israeli national intelligence agency, who's using the unsuspecting Ari as a pawn in a grand scheme involving much double-crossing. In one scene, Miki gets to eat a sandwich on a bench. It's a minor role.

Then there's Kim Johnson (Olivia Thirlby), who shows up as a flirtatious USA Today photographer with a broken watch. But is she who she says she is?

You might care, but I was more interested by the various telephones showcased: the old-fashioned dial-ups, the push-buttons, and the oversized cellulars, especially when one is used as a murder weapon. Try killing with an iPhone X. It just won't do.

In another scene, Ari is violently beaten up, possibly by members of Mukhabarat, the Syrian intelligence agency. Blood is everywhere. Face, clothes, street. The next moment, he is splatter-free, bloodless like the film. Maybe he was carrying Wash N Dri towelettes.

Director Berk means well with this poorly realized script he co-wrote with Samantha Newton. He’s trying to capture the inanities of the situation in the Middle East, spotlighting how both sides have to go through the motions of playing cat and mouse, constantly switching who's the feline and who's the rodent, but you can't care when the characters are little more than one-dimensional.

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Tom Cruise Becomes Almost Huggable Again

Brandon Judell — Sun, 15 Jul 2018 19:38:32 +0000

Tom Cruise Becomes Almost Huggable Again Brandon Judell July 15, 2018 - 15:38

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This latest installment of the Mission Impossible franchise is unmitigated fun with its deliciously overwrought motorcycle chases, hellish helicopter skirmishes, frenzied fisticuffs, plus rooftop jumpings galore. My favorite is the bathroom decimation.

More beneficial to our joy is that Mr. Tom Cruise has stopped making gossip headlines in recent years. He's only garnered press for injuring himself during an MI stunt. There's no added Oprahesque/religious/marital baggage to distract us from sitting back and being totally enveloped in this "global cultural icon's"* portrayal of the troubled Tom Hunt as he puts aside his own personal problems to safeguard the world from three plutonium bombs that have fallen into the hands of those who will sell them to terrorists.

The plot itself is much too complex to try to introduce to you here. (Something about a bonkers anarchist (Sean Harris) and his group, the Apostles, and their desire to overthrow world order.) And, yes, there are moments when you are about to say, "Huh!" But before you can scratch your head in bewilderment, the film hurtles forth at such a great speed from Belfast to Paris to London to Kashmir that you've forgotten that it might not at all make sense. It sort of does though in retrospect.

Aiding Mr. Cruise are his regular sidekicks: Simon Pegg as Benji and Ving Rhames as Luther. Both add much needed humor to the proceedings. Rebecca Ferguson also appears again as Ilsa Faust, the ass-kicking, sharp shooter who has won over Hunt’s heart. And if the Oscars come up with an award for best cameo, Wolf Blitzer will definitely get a nomination for his solid comic turn here.

Then there's Henry Cavill as an overly attractive stick-in-the mud CIA agent. Perfect typecasting.

As for writer/director Christopher McQuarrie's helming, although he lacks Paul (Bourne Ultimatum) Greengrass's artfulness, his sensibility is a perfect complement to a large popcorn and a Coke. The man, who won an Oscar for The Usual Suspects screenplay in 1996, tries to pull out all the stops here, and he pretty much succeeds.

The result will be a huge hit, or is one already, which means get ready for Missions Impossible 7, 8, and 9 -- and at least another two decades of the personable Mr. Cruise doing what he does best.

*As noted in the film's production notes.

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The Painter & The Bull

Dusty Wright — Sat, 30 Jun 2018 03:38:32 +0000

The Painter & The Bull Dusty Wright June 29, 2018 - 23:38

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Woman Walks Ahead (DirecTV Cinema)

Producer Rick Solomon said it took him 17 years to get his movie made! Based on true events, this compelling movie tells the story of Catherine Weldon (Jessica Chastain), a widowed "feminist" artist from Brooklyn, New York who, in the 1880s, heads out to the Badlands to paint Lakota Sioux chief Sitting Bull, the Native American hero who defeated General Custer at the Battle of the Little Bighorn. More like a "bull" in the proverbial "china shop," she is up against it from the start. This is the America that was brutal to Native Americans and women alike, relegating them second class citizens; misguided machoism masquerading as paternal protector.

The film was directed by Brit Susanna White and written by Steven Knight. And while Weldon becomes politicized by the plight of Sitting Bull and his Native brothers and sisters, I wonder if his original script trumped up the popcorn romance that is hinted between subject and painter. The real life story suggests that Weldon was not interested in becoming Sitting Bull's third wife. It was the one aspect about the film that felt unnecessary. But given the charisma of the two leads perhaps their on screen chemistry muddied those waters.

The entire cast is wonderful but this movie truly belongs to Greyeyes. It's a knockout performance and certainly Academy-award nomination worthy. This veteran actor is a Plains Cree from the Muskeg Lake First Nation in Saskatchewan, and he is riveting throughout -- whether digging potatoes or posing for his portrait. And Oscar winner Sam Rockwell as Col. Silas Groves is both menacing and funny, he understands the real danger of both the "savages" and the savage bureaucrats in Washington, D.C. As we know, politics are never easy to negotiate, even in the movies.

Additional kudos to cinematography Mike Eley's stunning camera, with widescreen vistas shot in North Dakota and New Mexico that resonate like Ansel Adams' frontier photographs. I can think of worse ways to spend a hot summer night than sitting through this excellent adult movie.

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"I Don’t Need to Watch Gay Porn to Be Disgusted by Men.”

Brandon Judell — Sat, 09 Jun 2018 15:00:00 +0000

"I Don’t Need to Watch Gay Porn to Be Disgusted by Men.” Brandon Judell June 9, 2018 - 11:00

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If John Waters and Karl Marx co-directed a remake of The Beguiled, the resulting feature would be very much like Bruce LaBruce's The Misandrists.

(A misandrist, by the way, is "a person who dislikes, despises, or is strongly prejudiced against men.")

Mr. LaBruce, for the uninitiated, is a man . . . and a highly subversive one at that with a cult following. Yes, for over two decades, this queer underground filmmaker has shocked and entertained with his tongue-in-cheek-and-elsewhere oeuvre. Hustler White (1996) starred an ex-beau of Madonna's in an ode to L.A. male prostitution that includes a white, very blond boytoy being gangbanged by a very long line of African American hunks. Think of Trader Joe's on a Sunday afternoon. Gerontophilia (2013) focuses on a young man discovering he has the hots for the male geriatric clientele of a nursing home. Then Otto; or, Up with Dead People (2008) chronicles with a gory finesse the plight of a carnivorous, neo-Goth gay zombie.

All of LaBruce's screenplays are slathered with his punk, dystopian, Wildean wit. For example, the ultra-anarchic The Raspberry Reich (2004) includes the pithy exchange:

"Heterosexuality is the opiate of the masses."

"I thought opiates were the opiate of the masses."

Now in his latest deliriously silly, although politically astute, offering, LaBruce pushes the Me Too movement to a mental landscape that will have the Weinsteins of the world quaking in their Guccis.

The year is 1999, and on an isolated country estate in Ger(wo)many the Female Liberation Army (FLA) resides. Founded by the didactic and campily sadistic Big Mother (Susanne Sachsse), the FLA is ragtag collection of young women she's collected off the streets. Some were prostitutes, some were homeless, and others petty criminals. Then there are four older women, oft dressed as nuns, who serve as instructors to the lasses, and state such inspirational mantras as: "We must tell the world to wake up and smell the estrogen" and "Remember, girls, the closest way to a man’s heart is through his chest."

As for the group's dinner chant: "Blessed is the goddess of all worlds that has made me a woman."

The film begins, not unlike the Clint Eastwood classic, with a wounded soldier, Volker (Til Schindler), being come upon by the somber Isolde (Kita Updike) and the horny Hilda (Olivia Kundisch). This is after he's been running through the woods, chased by dogs, for quite a while, stopping only to pee on several trees. Collapsing, Volker asks for shelter. Hilda, who has an unrequited crush on Isolde, knows it’s against the rules to bring a male home. Isolde, who loves her back only as a "comrade," convinces her pal to help hide this stranger in the FLA's basement. They do so, knowing if discovered their punishment will be relentless and possibly fatal. Oh, no!

Meanwhile, upstairs, several ladyfolk are viewing extremely explicit gay male porn in order to master cinematic techniques for their forthcoming Pornutopia -- A World without Men, a lesbian sex extravaganza that will radicalize all women who watch it, causing them to eventually overthrow the male patriarchal society.

Before the girls get that far, there will be orgies with numerous hardboiled eggs and one strawberry, a castration, a pillow fight, loads of gender fluidity, jitterbugging, and a pummeling with a sock filled with apples. The affable acting for the most part, with several exceptions, is apropos of what you’d expect from an Ed Wood offering such as Glen or Glenda. Some of the sets, though, are visually startling, and the makeup is inspirational. But more important is the film’s message that Sister Dagmar so succinctly voices: "A woman is a fever that never subsides." Or does Big Mother have the last word: “No one fucks with a nun!” Now who would argue with that?

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Frat-Ricide

Brandon Judell — Mon, 06 Nov 2017 02:55:20 +0000

Frat-Ricide Brandon Judell November 5, 2017 - 21:55

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Who doesn't enjoy a little Euripides with their breakfast cereal or, in this case, with their unrelenting celluloid exploration of sadistic, on-campus initiations? Of course, hazing has been ceaselessly explored in the news each time there's a new frat and in previous efforts such as Todd Phillips and Andrew Gurland's documentary Frat House (1998) and John Landis' comedy Animal House (1978). Even the Lifetime channel (The Haunting of Sorority Row (2007)) and one of this year's best movies (Prof. Marston and the Wonder Women) have taken out their paddles, exploring the female side of these rituals. However, seldom has Dionysus and the Bacchae been incorporated into the subject matter.

(Please note that Tennessee Williams was inspired by the same source material for Suddenly Last Summer, a tale of lobotomies, cannibalism, and repressed homosexuality. Sounds very much like a fraternity initiation in the end, doesn't it?) Indeed, few films, if any, have gone where writer/director David Burkman has fearlessly ventured with his game cast. Urination, defecation, paddling, scavenger hunts, branding, and mistreatment of a canine are just the bonuses. There's also nonstop alcohol guzzling, heterosexual orgies, whip-cream hats, cellophane bondage, countless bare male butts, and most frightening of all, virile young men forced to scream out, "I'm a pretty, little princess." All this is autobiographical, by the way.

The praiseworthy Burkman avows in the film's press notes:

"Haze is based on my own experience pledging a fraternity in college. I knew that the late-night lineups and forced alcohol consumption, the blindfolds and secrets, the physical endurance tests, being submerged in industrial-sized trash cans filled with ice water, vomit and human refuse, being spit on, force fed undrinkable concoctions of who knows what, the psychological mind games and abuse, and my own willingness to endure it all would serve to tell a very powerful story."

Sort of sounds a bit like auditioning for Miramax.

The plot of Haze that accompanies all of these body fluids is basically simple. There are two brothers. Nick Forest (the highly cute Kirk Curran) wants to join a fraternity. His sibling, Pete (the equally attractive Mike Blejer), is anti-frat, and is helming a documentary about the evils of pledge life. Those interviewed for the doc act as sort of a Greek chorus, warning Nick and his peers of what they are going to get into if they would only bother to listen. Taylor (the rather charismatic Jeremy O'Shea) is the head of the frat, Epsilon, and acts as the Dionysus figure here, egging on all sorts of debaucheries plus about 30 minutes of binge drinking and 40 more of demeaning women. One young lass (Kristin Rogers), after a night of sexual humiliation, is told by a sorority sister that she heard "your pussy looks like a pile of roast beef."

The built-in problem with films such as Haze is that although its audience is being warned against the inhumane atrocities inherent to the pledge system, the same audience is only watching the film to get off on the abuses. The highly edited finale with its sudden shocks, to the pitch of awe and terror, definitely carry home one classic professor's warning that can be learned from the Bacchae: "Don't fuck with the Gods."

Haze has just become obtainable on DVD + BLU-RAY. It's also available on Video On Demand (e.g. Amazon Video, Google Play, Vudu) and Cable on Demand (DirecTV, Dish Network, Cox).

Shorties: Drugged-Out Doors, Disgruntled Soccer Players, & Parched Africans

Brandon Judell — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 23:55:02 +0000

Shorties: Drugged-Out Doors, Disgruntled Soccer Players, & Parched Africans Brandon Judell April 1, 2010 - 19:55

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1. Pumzi

It's 35 years after World War III, all water sources are radioactive, and the land is infertile. As for the robotic remnants of mankind, they live underground in a high-tech, totalitarian empire with a regime so invasive that when a computer detects you are dreaming, a recorded voice commands, "Take your dream suppressants!"

As for sources of water, one's urine and sweat are gathered and then recycled into drinkable liquids

But is life above ground really so uninhabitable that such measures are necessary? The lovely Asha (Kudzani Moswela), a curator at a virtual natural history museum, believes so until she receives a package with no return address. Inside is soil that seemingly can sustain life. Inspired, she plants an old seed, and it spouts. Her leaders have said that was impossible.

With such information and behavior deemed illegal, Asha, to escape prosecution and save her plant, makes a getaway into a barren, unending desert in search of humidity, the tree of her dreams, and freedom.

This impressive 20-minute allegory directed by Wanuri Kahiu, a Kenyan woman, is part of the 17th Annual New York African Film Festival, where it's one of 13 features and 25 shorts spotlighting the realities and hopes of filmmakers from 18 African countries. This is a continent where making a movie is a still a challenge that can't be easily overcome with daddy's credit card and a degree from NYU.

Presented by The Film Society of Lincoln Center and African Film Festival, Inc., the event's motto is best exemplified by a quote from black historian Saunders Redding: "Freedom is a precarious thing, a sometime thing, a completely unpredictable quantity." And an unshackled cinema can be its best friend.

2. Between the Cup and the Election

Also at the Festival is this spectacularly ambitious student film representing the Democratic Republic of Congo (formerly Zaire). Helmed by Monique Mbeka Phoba and Guy Kabeya Mua, it was filmed in 2006 to spotlight the country's first free elections since its independence.

To explore the importance of this vote, the directors take a roundabout approach, following the lives of the members of the 1974 Congolese soccer team, the Leopards, the first sub-Saharan squad to compete in the World Cup. The Leopards lost to the Yugoslavians, but they still came home as heroes to their nation, "victors" who were exploited by the dictator Mobutu, who ruled Zaire with an iron corruption for 32 years.

The Panthers did receive houses, cars, and jobs, but it was downhill from then on for most. Several died, several are living in poverty, and one is running for office, but their history is in danger of being forgotten.

Since the documentary is only 56 minutes in length and tries to cover a whole lot of ground, the individuals interviewed often blur into each other with just a few exceptions, such as the wife of a player; she explains that her unemployed husband refuses to be filmed because he's embarrassed by his poverty. She has to go around begging.

She is not alone. The screen is filled with the bright colors of indigence: brilliant hand-me-down T-shirts, lustrous trash-filled streets, and energetic kids hoping to become soccer stars themselves. Hope is the message

As the movie nears its end, one of the directors exclaims, "This film had no bridge, but we made it to the end." The other adds, that against all odds, "we have immortalized the Leopards' story." Definitely, here is an offering where content and intentions rule.

3. When You're Strange: A Film about The Doors

Sensationally nostalgic for anyone who was around in the late '60s/early '70s, director Tom DiCillo's compelling paean to Jim Morrison and The Doors zooms by with an immeasurable amoral joy. Self-destruction and tight leather pants have seldom been depicted in such a loving manner.

From Morrison's childhood to his enrollment in film school to the formation of the band to his inspirations (e.g. Nietzsche, Rimbaud, and William Blake), the doc is sort of The Complete Idiot's Guide to The Doors. (But I must say I adore the series. Its volume on Learning Spanish was a lifesaver for me in Mexico.)

As for the footage, much of it never seen before -- including scenes of Morrison drinking and diving nude and drinking and snuggling and drinking and performing -- it's quite gloriously engaging, and clearly shows that Morrison's charisma is still palatable 39 years after his death. That was male beauty.

But you're asking whether When You're Strange deserves to be on the Big Screen as opposed to a Boob Tube cable channel? Well, with Johnny Depp's first-rate narration and many classic concert performances, that depends on how big your Boob Tube is. Sometimes size matters.