Forward
13: Waking Up The American Dream
(2014/Cinema Libre DVD)/Spinning
Plates (2013/Inception
DVD)
Picture:
C/C+ Sound: C/C+ Extras: C-/C- Documentaries: B
Here
are two new documentaries worth going out of your way for.
Patrick
S. Lovell's Forward
13
(2014) is a hard, smart look at how bad and ugly the housing crisis
was and still is, how certain banks and politicians decided to steal
the equity out from under home owners who thought their houses were
secure while getting vulnerable others to sign for homes they could
never afford at prices they could not afford and/or with hidden
costs. The intense 97 minutes is very thorough and gives deep
details the media has not done anywhere enough to explain or detail.
This is not the first time we have encountered the subject in a
documentary and will not be the last, but it is well done and a
must-see work.
Joseph
Levy's Spinning
Plates
(2013) may not be as political, but is as engaging as it shows the
ups and downs of three different families running three different
kinds of restaurants against different kinds of odds. The Breitbach
Family has had their place for 150 years and their classy eatery is a
major center of the community, then the longtime building burns to
the ground! We go to Tuscan and meet a Hispanic family running a
Mexican restaurant while trying to just survive, but things are not
going as well as they should despite some great food ideas and had
work. Then there is the successful people of Chicago's Alinea making
world news for their food and their place., but a bizarre twist is
about to befall one of the owners.
A
celebration of food and people, the program asks us to consider both,
how we interact with it and what it means in the future. A really
pleasant surprise, this one is also worth going out of your ay for an
joins a solid cycle of food documentaries we have seen in recent
years that have been as enlightening as they are informative.
The
anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 image on both DVDs are digital
shoots, but 13
is a little softer using many rough and standard definition digital
and analog video sources as evidence to show the scandal in detail.
The lossy Dolby Digital 5.1 mix on Plates
is better than the he lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo on 13,
but both hardly epitomize what you can do with the tracks available
as the former is interview-based and the latter can offer rough and
even monophonic sound. A trailer is the only extra on either
release.
-
Nicholas Sheffo
