Documentary Review Sorry/Not Sorry

Sorry/Not Sorry (2024)

Directed by Caroline Suh, Cara Mones

Written by Documentary 

Starring Jen Kirkman, Abby Schachner, Megan Koester, Andy Kindler, Michael Ian Black, Michael Schur

Release Date July 12th 

I have a pet peeve. Every time I hear some boomer asshole talk about how such and such behavior was okay at the time. NO IT FUCKING WASN'T! There was never a time in recorded history where sexual assault was okay. There was never a fucking time in human history when a man could pull out his penis in front of other people and begin masturbating and it was okay. There has never been a time when inflicting your sexual perversion on other people without their consent was okay. Racism, sexism, homophobia, Transphobia, these things were never okay. They should never have been treated as if they were okay. 

It was a different time they say. They say this because they want to avoid being judged for engaging in this unacceptable behavior or for condoning it, or turning a blind eye to it. It's shameful and you should be ashamed. I should be ashamed. When we allowed this unacceptable behavior to be treated as okay, we were wrong. When my friends and I encouraged another kid to show his penis to some girls as a prank, we were wrong. And when our parents found out, we all got in trouble. And why? Because it was wrong. 

Click here for my full length review. 

Documentary Review AfroPunk: The Rock N'Roll N***** Experience

Afropunk: The Rock N’Roll N***** Experience 

Directed by James Spooner 

Written by Documentary 

Starring Ralph Darden, Matt Davis, Maya Glick

Release Date August 4th, 2007

German philosopher Georg Hegel defines alienation as the unhappy consciousness. He continues on saying that alienation is typical of philosophical skepticism as an alienated soul which is conscious of itself as a divided being, or a doubled and contradictory being whose aspirations towards universality have been frustrated.

The subjects of James Spooner's fascinating documentary Afropunk know all about alienation as defined by Mr. Hegel. Being black in the predominantly white punk scene and a punk in the black community is to be a divided soul. However, as this documentary shows these divided souls are making a way for themselves in a growing community of artists.

Shot over a year on a minuscule budget Afropunk is a collection of interviews with fans and artists in the punk scene. This is not the whitewashed MTV punk scene as identified by the Good Charlotte's of the world. Rather this is the true punk scene of tiny clubs and rowdy hardcore fans. As well as near poverty stricken artists who don't do punk to get on MTV but rather as their only true way to express themselves artistically. Artists who found something in the angry thrashing rhythms and screeching riffs of Punk that can't be simply explained.

Among these artists is Matt Davis from Iowa City Iowa, who performed in a number of punk bands over his short life including the well regarded Ten-Grand. Living in near poverty with his band-mates, Davis personified the duality of the punk lifestyle. He lived for the music and the energy of performing, even if it meant selling blood to make rent. Tragically, Davis died before completion of the film.

Tamar Kali is well known in the New York underground scene for combining hardcore rock and soul identified with the aestheticism of punk. The punk look and the angry lyrics stirred something inside her. After years of struggle with her identity as a punk and a black woman, her fully formed personality leaps off the screen with great strength. Don't be surprised when she breaks through to wider audiences.

Moe Mitchell is the lead singer of the hardcore punk band Cipher. The band with its three white members and Moe at its lead is known for its black power lyrics. Whether Moe's audience has an understanding of his message seems unlikely, the audiences are almost entirely white. Moe doesn't seem to care. After attending Howard University and becoming involved in the black power movement, Moe has found peace with his duality and his friends in the band are aware that when the revolution comes they won't be on the same side.

Finally, my favorite person in the documentary is Marika Jonez, a punk DJ in California. Her strength is organization. She runs a website that promotes punk shows in her California locale and DJ's at punk clubs. Her struggle as a young black punk is the most poignant of the stories in Afropunk because she is the youngest and most vulnerable of the people profiled. She isn't as comfortable with herself as the others and is only at the beginning of her self-discovery.

The documentary intersperses the stories of its four leads with interviews with the people who kicked down the door and made it easier for African-Americans to thrive in the Punk scene. There are interviews with the members of Bad Brainz, Fishbone and the Dead Kennedys amongst many other pioneers.

Director James Spooner weaves a remarkable story in Afropunk. One that combines the history of a scene with a philosophical exploration of identity and humanity. For anyone who thinks Punk is just loud angry noise, Afropunk will teach you that Punk is one of the few musical forms where discourse thrives. Expressions of anger and frustration over politics, religion and race are just some of the topics that Punk tackles that all other music genres stray from.

Documentary Review Adrienne

Adrienne 

Directed by Andy Ostroy

Written by Documentary 

Starring Adrienne Shelly, Sara Bareilles, Robert John Burke, Nathan Fillion

Release Date December 1st, 2021

One of the darkest days of my career happened on November 1st, 2006 and I didn’t even know it at the time. That was the day that actress turned director Adrienne Shelly was murdered in her office in New York City. I was aware of Adrienne Shelly but I had not yet seen her masterpiece, Waitress. Once I saw Shelly’s extraordinary film, and named it among my favorite movies of 2007, I was both deeply moved and desperately distraught over her loss and the loss of the incredible works of art she undoubtedly would have created in the future. The new documentary, Adrienne, was a cathartic experience for me as an admirer of Adrienne Shelly the artist and the human being. 

Adrienne Shelly bubbled under mainstream success for several years from the late 1980s and throughout the 1990s. She got her start with visionary weirdo Hal Hartley and eventually graduated to more mainstream roles in Hollywood features. But, Shelly's greatest successes came in independent film where her status as an It-Girl of the future helped her work get noticed while allowing Shelly to continue to flex her artistic muscles outside of the shackles of mainstream Hollywood feature films.

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media, linked here. 

Documentary Review Punch 9 for Harold Washington

Punch 9 for Harold Washington 

Directed by Joe Winston

Written by Documentary

Starring Harold Washington, Richard Daley, David Axelrod

Release Date October 14th, 2021

Punch 9 for Harold Washington documents the rise to Chicago Mayor of former Congressman Harold Washington, a brilliant, charismatic, and dedicated reformer. After years of patronage determining the fate of Chicago under the Mayor Daley regime, Washington’s rise to the highest office in the third largest city in the country felt like a breath of fresh air. The optimism and heart of Washington’s leadership felt like a new dawn and made his far too early death all the more tragic, especially as Chicago sank back to the depths of Daley era duplicitousness. 

Punch 9 for Harold Washington picks up in the late 1960s when the patronage and corruption of the Mayor Richard J Daley regime was in full effect. We don’t linger here but we get enough of a sense of how a political machine worked. We need that information to show us just what a reformer like Harold Washington was up against, a city run by one man, shaped in his image and crafted via graft to keep it as it was, a self-sustaining, greed addled monstrosity built to keep Richard J Daley at the top.

Find my full length review at Swamp.Media, linked here. 

Documentary Review Jagged

Jagged 

Directed by Alison Klayman

Written by Documentary

Starring Alanis Morissette 

Release Date November 21st, 2021 

On November 25th, 1995, I was 19 years old and I was in the audience at the Adler Theater in Davenport, Iowa to see Alanis Morrissette on one of the dates from her Jagged Little Pill tour. This isn’t clout chasing on my part, Alanis was, by this point in her career, even being only 21 years old herself, already one of the biggest stars in the world. By November of 1995, You Oughtta Know had already rocketed Alanis to superstar status by the time she brought the Jagged Little Pill tour to Davenport, Iowa. 

It was an amazing experience. I had great seats, about the 15th row, center of the building. By this point, Alanis was already working on new music that would eventually end up on her next record, Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie and I got to hear an early, stripped down version of Thank U and Unsent. (Okay, that was a little bit of clout chasing on my part.) It was an incredible experience and it all came rushing back to me as I watched the new documentary Jagged on HBO Max.

Find my full length review at Beat.Media, linked here. 

Documentary Review Beanie Mania

Beanie Mania 

Directed by Yemisi Brookes

Written by Documentary 

Starring Colleen Ballinger, Lina Trivedi 

Release Date December 23rd, 2021 

YouTuber Jenny Nicholson, arguably that platform’s best personality, has been talking about doing a video on the Beanie Baby phenomenon for some time now. And that is, in all honesty, the only reason I subjected myself to the new HBO Max documentary Beanie Mania. I am really eager to see Jenny do a video on this unique subject and I thought having a little more background on the topic might enhance how much fun her video will be. That said, there are some fascinating elements to Beanie Mania in and of itself. 

Beanie Mania takes audiences back to the mid-1990s when a small-time toy company executive named Ty Warner struck out on his own and somehow struck gold with socks shaped like various animals and stuffed with plastic beans. It’s a complete mystery as to why this stuffed toy became a worldwide phenomenon and Beanie Mania doesn’t really offer much of an answer for why this product of all products became such a ludicrously over the top fad. A combination of good timing and clever marketing created a one of a kind phenomenon that has yet to be duplicated.

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media, linked here. 

Documentary Review American Gadfly

American Gadfly 

Directed by Skye Wallin

Written by Documentary 

Starring Mike Gravel

Release Date January 3rd, 2022 

American Gadfly is one of the most exciting and fun documentaries I have seen in some time. Most political documentaries are so dry that they make great kindling. That’s certainly not the case with American Gadfly which is colorful and engaging while also being intelligent, thoughtful and enlightening. If you don’t know who former United States Senator Mike Gravel was or you think he was just some crackpot who ran for President a couple of times, this documentary sets the record straight about a hero of Progressive Democratic politics and the generation he so unexpectedly enlivened. 

The Senator from Alaska from 1969 to 1981, Mike Gravel rose to fame in the early 1970s when, in the midst of the scandal building from the leak of The Pentagon Papers by government contractor Daniel Ellsberg, Gravel, with help from Noam Chomsky, read a version of The Pentagon Papers into the official record of the Senate using parliamentary procedure to cover the fact that he was releasing top secret information. It was a master stroke that allowed the media to hear what was in the Papers and cleared the legal hurdles that halted the Washington Post and New York Times from publishing the Papers.

Find my full length review at Swamp.Media, linked here. 

Documentary Review A Cops and Robbers Story

A Cops and Robbers Story

Directed by Ilinca Calugareanu

Written by Documentary 

Starring Corey Pegues, Victoria N. Alcala

Release Date November 20th, 2020

When former New York Police Department Commander Corey Pegues went on the Combat Jack Podcast and opened up about his past as a gang member and drug dealer he created a firestorm. Amid such a frenzy it’s very easy for the truth to get lost in the hot takes, spin, and agendas of those eager to opine on controversial topics. That fact makes a documentary like A Cops and Robbers Story so valuable. This documentary lays bare the life of Corey Pegues in all of its complexity and controversy. 

Directed by Ilinca Calugareanu, A Cops and Robbers Story lays out the conflict of Corey Pegues in the opening moments. Pegues was a member of the NYPD and instructed officers regarding identifying known drug dealers and proper investigative technique. The bones of his presentation was a VHS tape and when he pressed play his heart nearly stopped. The video laid out the leadership of the famed New York street gang, The Supreme. In a talking head interview Pegues nervously recounts his reasonable concern that he himself might be listed in this chain of command.

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media, linked here. 

Documentary Chari XCX Alone Together

Charli XCX Alone Together

Directed by Bradley Bell, Pablo Jones-Soler

Written by Documentary 

Starring Charli XCX 

Release Date January 28th, 2022 

I love fandoms. I love dedicated groups of people who take to an artist and their art and become a community. It’s an online phenomenon that did not exist when I was young and part of various fandoms. I am still a fan of many different artists and their work but I’ve never been part of a fandom and I envy those who have that connection and are able to share their love of pop ephemera with other like-minded people. I’m happy when I see a group of people who get along and are able to find a space to share their dedication to something. 

The new documentary Charli XCX Alone Together is about a pop star coping with the pandemic, the lockdowns, and all that came with the start of COVID-19’s hold on the country. Part of how that pop star, Charli XCX coped with the pandemic and shelter at home was further embracing her fandom, bringing her biggest fans even closer to her via virtual hangouts on Zoom, Tweeting and interacting on social media, and eventually deciding to make an album that was fully part of her online community, one that could organically be attributed to her fans who contributed lyrics, ideas, art and support.

Find my full length review at Beat.Media, linked here. 

Documentary Review Dunk or Die

Dunk or Die 

Directed by Nicolas De Virieu

Written by Documentary 

Starring Kadour Ziani 

Release Date February 21st, 2022 

Documentaries are a window into a world you may not have known existed. The best documentaries are ones that take you to new places in the world, in existence, in consciousness. Documentaries expand reality, they teach, they inform and they entertain. The new French, black & white, basketball documentary Dunk or Die may seem like a documentary about a basketball player in France, emulating the heroes of the NBA, but that’s just the surface. 

Director Nicolas De Verieu has the specific task of chronicling the life of Kadour Ziane, a superstar around the world for his spectacular mastery of the slam dunk. In the process of capturing Ziane, De Verieu throws a light on the nature of obsession. What drives the obsessive personality? Trauma? Riches? Fame? For Kadour Ziane, obsession means breaking physical, mental and emotional barriers built in a youth filled with the struggles of race and class.

Find my full length review at Unbalanced.Media, linked here. 

Documentary Review A Peloton of One

A Peloton of One

Directed by John Bernardo, Steven E. Mallorca

Written by Documentary 

Starring Dave Ohlmuller 

Release Date May 1st, 2020 

A Peloton of One is an emotionally raw and inspiring story about one man healing himself and others from the seat of a bicycle. While you may see the word Peloton and think someone is trying to sell you an expensive at home bicycle set up, a Peloton is actually just a French term for a group of bicycle enthusiasts riding together. Dave Ohlmuller however, in 2017, became A Peloton of One when he decided to ride his bike from Chicago to New York City. 

Why did Dave launch this remarkable ride? He wanted to raise awareness for those who have struggled with having been sexually abused as children. A Peloton of One is a reflection of the still ongoing ripple effect of the Catholic Church scandal that found Catholic churches around the world frantically trying to cover for Priests who’d done monstrous things, committed horrific crimes, and how the church desperately tried to sweep the situation under the rug.

Find my full length review linked here. 

Documentary Review Dear Mr. Brody

Dear Mr. Brody 

Directed by Keith Maitland

Written by Documentary 

Starring Renee Brody, Michael Aronin, Melissa Robyn Glassman, Michael Brody, 

Release Date March 16th, 2021 

In 1970 a man named Michael Brody, the little known heir to a margarine fortune, became the most talked about person on the planet by offering to give away his multi-million dollar fortune. A self-described hippie, Michael Brody had been known by friends as a lonely but very generous young man. Mostly abandoned by his rich parents, Michael grew up in the care of nannies and housekeepers and developed a disdain for the fortune he would one day inherit. 

Then came the hippie movement of the late 60s and Woodstock and the drug culture, all of which would come to alter the course of Michael’s life. Inspired by the peace, love, and unity of the Hippie ethos, Michael Brody launched a crazy idea: he would give away his millions of dollars to anyone who needs it. Brody passed along the word to a newspaper which immediately put him on the front page and launched a bizarre phenomenon that revealed the dark underbelly of American poverty.

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media, linked here. 

Documentary Review Batman & Me

Batman & Me 

Directed by Michael Wayne

Written by Documentary 

Starring Darren Maxwell, Peter Sims 

Release Date June 30th, 2020 

Batman & Me is a meandering and mildly entertaining documentary about one man’s obsession with collecting. You might assume that the movie is about what drives someone to become obsessed with a particular brand of pop culture to an all-encompassing degree. The reality is sadly more mundane and mildly amusing. Though the documentary seems to promise a greater insight into the mind of collectors, what we ultimately get in Batman & Me is that sometimes people become obsessed and it’s only a notable aspect of their life. 

Batman & Me is the story of Darren ‘Dags’ Maxwell, a filmmaker from Australia who grew up obsessed with Batman. After the release of the 1989 Batman movie starring Michael Keaton, Dags got into collecting Batmanmemorabilia to the point of obsession. It started innocently with a Batman board game that he opened and played with friends and grew into obsessively trying to get every piece of Batman memorabilia available.

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media, linked here. 

Documentary Review I Am Here

I Am Here

Directed by Jordy Sank 

Written by Documentary

Starring Ella Blumenthal

Release Date February 25th, 2021

In 2019, a group of white nationalists in South Africa started engaging in Holocaust denial. One woman, a longtime resident of South Africa, responded not by meeting their hate and ignorance with more hate but by bravely asking these young men to meet with her and talk with her and hear her story. That woman’s name is Ella Blumenthal, she’s 98 years old and she survived stints in three different German extermination camps during World War 2. 

Naturally, the cowardly, ignorant, white nationalists hid themselves away because they likely knew that there was no way they could stand up to someone who had actually been through something the way Ella has. The remarkable new documentary I Am Here gives Ella the chance to tell her story in forceful and vigorous terms, through Ella’s own powerful words. I am Here proceeds with a first person narrative as Ella narrates her story over exceptionally moving animated sequences and instances of archival footage.

Find my full length review at Swamp.Media, linked here. 

Documentary Review Song for Cesar

Song for Cesar

Directed by Abel Sanchez, Andres Allegria

Written by Documentary 

Starring Cesar Chavez 

Release Date March 11th, 2022 

From pain, anguish, and strife often comes the greatest works of art. This has been true throughout civilization but in certain areas, it was crystalized. Flashpoints of great pain and suffering are marked in human history by great works of art and a strong example of that comes in the art that was born from the fields of toil in California in the 1940s to the 1960s and 1970s, much of it inspired by a man named Cesar Chavez. 

The new documentary, Song of Cesar, reflects upon the art that was created while Cesar Chavez led migrant workers from a time where they were criminally exploited to a time when they were finally paid a minimum wage for their work and were given the kinds of protections that should have existed out of simple, human decency and somehow did not.

Find my full Length review at Beat.Media, linked here. 

Documentary Review The Sound of Scars

The Sound of Scars 

Directed by Leigh Brooks

Written by Documentary 

Starring Life of Agony 

Released April 16th, 2021 

The Sound of Scars is an incredibly emotional documentary. The story behind the band, Life of Agony, The Sound of Scars details the trauma, the heartache, the tragedy and the triumph that created this legendary heavy metal band. I’d never heard of Life of Agony before this documentary, it’s not my kind of music, but after seeing The Sound of Scars, you can count me in as a fan. 

Life of Agony began in a family basement in a New York City burb in the late 1980s, early 1990s. Cousins Mina, formerly Keith, Caputo and Joey Zampella discovered a mutual love of the band Biohazard and the hardcore metal scene. Sneaking into shows, they lived for mosh pits where they could explore and exert the anger and pain of their home life. For Mina, home was a place of constant agony at the hands of her abusive grandfather. For Tony, it was a father in the grip of alcoholism, and for both it was so much more than that.

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media, liked here. 

Documentary Stu's Show

Stu's Show 

Directed by C.J Willis 

Written by Documentary

Starring Stu Shostak 

Released May 2nd, 2022

Stu’s Show begins as one kind of documentary and ends as something completely different, richer, and more thoughtful. What looks like the story of a Hollywood outsider who became an unlikely ally and friend to the stars of the Golden Age of Television, slowly morphs into a harrowing story about our modern Healthcare system and the people on the fringes of society who are forced to struggle and risk death to get the care they need from an often uncaring and indifferent healthcare system. 

Stu Shostak is a boomer, he grew up at a time when television was new and parents moving into the working world created a generation of kids whose babysitters were I Love Lucy reruns and family meals were held in front of televisions with Leave it to Beaver and My Three Sons providing the soundtrack. Family time was TV time and Stu Shostak became obsessed with the stars of the so-called Golden Age of Television.

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media, linked here.