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Category:    Home > Reviews > Documentary > Cities > Economy > Industry > Military > Ecosystem > Oceans > Fish > Extinction > Genocide > Hol > Cul De Sac: A Suburban War Story (2002/Icarus DVD) + The End Of The Line (2009/Docurama DVD) + Hotel Terminus: The Life & Times Of Klaus Barbie (1988/Icarus DVD Set) + Looking For Fidel (2011/Cinema L

Cul De Sac: A Suburban War Story (2002/Icarus DVD) + The End Of The Line (2009/Docurama DVD) + Hotel Terminus: The Life & Times Of Klaus Barbie (1988/Icarus DVD Set) + Looking For Fidel (2011/Cinema Libre DVD) + Rivers Of A Lost Coast (2009/MVD DVD)

 

Picture: C/C+/C+/C/C     Sound: C+     Extras: C+/B-/C/D/C+     Features: C/B-/B+/C/B-

 

 

And now for some documentaries with something to talk about…

 

 

Garrett Scott’s Cul De Sac: A Suburban War Story (2002) builds its tale of the rise and fall of industrial military production in San Diego, California on a more recent story of a man who dug a tunnel looking for gold in his home.  Bored with this, he stole a military tank, drove down the highway and was killed by authorities trying to stop him.  It’s 57 minutes tries to tie this event with the decline of the working class in this country, in San Diego and Clairemont, California in particular and also tries to critique America in general, but it is so patchy that it never adds up to any big statement and anything I was able to connect either did not work or I did not agree with it.

 

New interviews are cut together with footage of the tank rampage and stock footage of the area at its peak growing with no end in sight.  It is also an early look at poor white suburbia as the rich (and those who could move) moved to new growing areas.  This may have some problems in how it has aged to, so I want to give Scott credit for trying to make this work, but ideas about methamphetamines come out of nowhere and should have either had more exposition here or been part of a separate work.  The included extra helps to update things.

 

Rupert Murray’s The End Of The Line (2009) is a solid work about how the fishing industry and serious misassumptions that fish can endlessly replenish themselves has backfired to the point that we may be fishing the world’s waterways to death.  Ted Danson narrated this National Geographic OceanNow co-production about how this happened, why it is happening, how it is being underreported and how we can reverse this extremely fatal trend.  Even if you do not eat fish, they are a very key part of the ecosystem so this is not just a reactionary work, but a very smart one pointing out how dire the situation is. It runs 83 minutes and not a moment is wasted.

 

Justin Coupe and Palmer Taylor that same year made Rivers Of A Lost Coast, which tells the same story in a specific way about the rise of fly fishing and how it took a very popular Russian River and surrounding areas and how they have been nearly permanently damaged by their success since the 1940s and 1950s, with the troubles starting to surface as early as the 1970s.  Tom Skerritt narrates the 86 minutes program which includes legends of fishing and much more. 

 

Marcel Ophuls’ massive documentary Hotel Terminus: The Life & Times Of Klaus Barbie (1988) is back on DVD and it continues to hold as much of its power as can be expected nearly a quarter century later, relevant as ever, even with so much revealed, said and done of the subject of The Holocaust.  With all the injustices in the world and new sanctions for torture and genocide by those who should know better, it is as relevant as ever.

 

Still shocking today, Barbie was known as The Butcher Of Lyon and though many Nazis and other Axis killers were brought to justice, many escaped and lived a long time, some of them dying in freedom and never paying for their horrendous crimes.  However, Barbie was among those being protected by no less than the U.S. Government, kept alive for valuable information to find other Nazis, fight the Soviet Union and even because of anti-Semitism within the government.  When this became known, many were rightly shocked and furious, leading to Barbie being sent to and tried in Lyon, France.

 

At 267 minutes, this was considered a landmark documentary at a time when they were not considered commercially viable at all and had a very limited audience, but this one was so significant that it played many movie theaters worldwide and to larger audiences than you might expect.  It rightly won the Academy Award for Best Documentary and its journalistic success is inarguable.  Ophuls (The Sorrow & The Pity) is amazing conducting interviews that let the subjects show where they stand, even when they do not realize it.  It is a classic and a must see.

 

Finally we have Oliver Stone’s mixed Looking For Fidel (2011) that plays like a less successful flipside to South Of The Border as Stone talks with Castro about politics, his integrity, and why he executed three political dissidents (and blamed the U.S. for this) for a hijacking to escape Cuba.  It is sometimes disturbing, Castro tries to justify himself with supposed beliefs, Stone gets to interview other dissidents and we get information on the side including more about CIA attempts to assassinate Castro from Castro.  He is at his worst when he says the CIA is really behind all the hijackings, as if no one ever wanted to escape his dictatorship.  So much for that revolution of his.

 

 

The 1.33 X 1 image on Cul and Terminus tend to be soft, but Terminus was filmed and does not suffer as much, though the anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 on Coast should look the best of all, it is as soft as Cul and the letterboxed 1.78 X 1 on Fidel with even the newest footage being softer than it should be.  That leaves the anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 on Line looking just very, very slightly better than Terminus.  All have Dolby Digital 2.0 Sound that is simple stereo at best and sometimes features older monophonic sound or flat newer sound with occasional dropouts.

 

Extras from Cul includes a 12-page booklet with more information inside the DVD case, Line includes 5 minutes of Webisodes, a minute with Danson on Line, text filmmaker bio, text on Docurama, Docurama trailers, Coral Triangle: Nursery Of The Seas featurette on the disc and Seafood Watch pocket guide inside the case making recommendation on how to help save the seas and its inhabitants, down to food choices.  This one is from January 2010, but you can learn more at:

 

www.endoftheline.com

 

 

Terminus also includes a 12-page booklet with more information inside the DVD case, Fidel has no extras at all and River oddly has none of its extras listed on the case, but includes Bill Schaadt Sketches in 1:45 minutes clip, three Deleted Scenes and five Extras Clips.  You can find out more about River at this link:

 

www.riversofalostcoast.com

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo


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