Driven:
From Wheelchair To Race Car
(2013/Cinema Libre DVD)/Elaine
Stritch: Shoot Me
(2013/Sundance Selects/MPI DVD)/16
Acres (2012/First Run
DVD)/Top Hat & Tales:
Harold Ross & The Making Of The New Yorker
(2001/First Run DVD)
Picture:
C/C+/C/C Sound: C+ Extras: C/C+/C/D Documentaries:
C+/B-/B/B-
Here
are some new documentaries for you to know about...
Brian
Malone's Driven: From Wheelchair
To Race Car (2013) tells
the story of Michael Patrick Bauer, who in the 1970s and early 1980s
was becoming a teen idol and also moved into pop and rock music. He
never became as famous as some other names of the time (Leif Garrett,
Rick Springfield, etc.) but he shared many teen magazines with them.
Moving onto family life, everything seemed at least stable until one
night, he was in a car accident that caused him paralysis from the
waist down and made his life a nightmare. His family helped change
that, but he misses his previous mobility, especially from a man who
was so active so often.
Some
friends and his family make one dram possible, the ability to race a
sports car again and they take a Corvette and design it for him to
drive any way he wants to. This is an untold story people should see
and we meet some terrific people in the process. Running 55 minutes,
I wish it were longer.
Extras
include a Photo Gallery, Original Theatrical Trailer, The Car Build
clip and Mike's Test Lap clip.
Chiemi
Karasawa's Elaine Stritch:
Shoot Me (2013) is a
profile of one of the greatest stage performers of all time, still
going strong in her twilight years, selling out venue after venue, an
icon in action still in demand, but starting to deal with old age,
loss, the damage from years of alcohol abuse and health issues.
Stritch is as feisty as ever and she is often as sharp as anyone
around her, not only knowing show business thoroughly, but being
show business incarnate. This gem runs 81 minutes and I wanted it to
go on longer, but the makers cut is a little short. Still, it
captures the highs and lows of a living legend not enough people know
about and does a fine job in the process.
Extras
include the Original Theatrical Trailer, Deleted Scenes, Outtakes and
the Poster Photo Shoot with Brigitte Lacombe.
Richard
Hankin's 16 Acres
(2012) is one of the most interesting of the 9/11 documentaries to
date, this time not only dealing with the event and the survivors
looking for justice and closure, but the how and why it took so long
to rebuild the space where the towers were permanently annihilated.
Politics, confusion, opportunism, politicians who did not know what
they were doing, some who did and a real estate magnate in the middle
of it all cannot seem to get anything
done in that area. This is the amazing story of how things finally
did happen up to the time of the film's release.
It
should have never
been a struggle to rebuild the space around Ground Zero and took way
more years than it should have, but here it is and this is a very
underrated work everyone should see. It runs a very healthy 92
minutes.
Extras
include a Photo Gallery and three clips about the construction.
Last
but not least is Adam Van Doren's Top
Hat & Tales: Harold Ross & The Making Of The New Yorker
(2001), an older, relevant-as-ever work about the man who established
one of the greatest magazines ever against many odds. We learn about
the founder of the title, but also how the magazine took shape and
who supported it, political incorrectness and all. It also reminds
us of the greatness of the print magazine that has a value books,
movies, newspapers, the Internet and other media just don;t have and
never will. We get some great vintage clips and stills throughout
that sketch out a real publishing classic. Though it runs only 47
minutes, this is very rich and worth your time as well.
There
are no extras.
The
anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 image presentations are offered by
the Driven,
Stritch
and Acres
DVDs, but due to the documentary nature and digital shooting of the
programs, most have more motion blur and picture flaws than I would
have liked, but the Stritch
DVD fares best with less blur and more stable, consistent images.
The 1.33 X 1 image in Yorker
is the oldest production here from an analog NTSC video source,
having staircasing and aliasing errors like the other DVDs, but color
can be limited.
As
for sound, Stritch
and Acres
offer lossy Dolby Digital 5.1, while Driven
and Yorker
have lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo, but they all even out sonically
with their share of older audio, flaws and location audio limits.
-
Nicholas Sheffo
